Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Deputies for the discussion on the amendments. As they will know, this legislation has had several months of work in terms of its preparation and very significant engagement, first in respect of my Department, working with the team and engaging with the stakeholders, a comprehensive consultation process with all farming organisations and all stakeholders that had an interest in the legislation, and then really good, solid, sterling work carried out by the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which met again and invited in stakeholders and farming representatives and spent a lot of meetings and a lot of time putting together a comprehensive pre-legislative scrutiny report to help to inform this legislation.

I gave that significant overview and looked at it in great detail. Twenty recommendations were made in that report by the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, based on cross-party involvement. I either fully accepted or significantly accepted 18 of those 20 recommendations.

My objective is to make sure the legislation is as effective and impactful as possible. When I was on the Opposition benches where the Deputies are now, one of my key policies, and indeed this is something the Ministers of State, Deputy Heydon and Senator Hackett are very committed to as well, and one of my key objectives in terms of getting into government was to introduce transparency legislation, to introduce a food regulator or food ombudsman office, to bring that transparency to the food supply chain. This can allow us to trace the massive work our farm families do across the country and the effort that goes into producing those cattle, beef, sheep, milk, pigs, poultry, horticulture products, eggs or whatever it might be. Of the food that is produced, 90% is exported abroad to markets across the world because we are such a good food-producing nation. Obviously we do not have control of the prices that are available abroad. We market the quality of our food very strongly to try to maximise the value of it. We want to be able to ensure that for the 90% of our food that is exported, there is transparency there, allowing us to trace back what is happening in the food supply chain and to apply as much pressure as we possibly can to ensure farmers are getting both a fair deal for the massive work they do producing it and a fair income. That is what this legislation is about. That is why the work has gone into it.

We had massive engagement on Committee Stage of the Bill and very thorough discussion. That was very important in terms of making this legislation as impactful as possible. We are now at the very last Stage in the Dáil and the Bill will move to the Seanad after this. I recognise the amendments that are being discussed at the moment. Despite all the several months of work, the first time I saw these particular amendments was last Thursday. They were put forward at this very late stage. That is fair enough. It is possible and appropriate as well within the legislative process.

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