Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to tackle this issue. In speaking to the amendment, I want to come at it this way.

Some of the retailers have been talking about this phoney price war with the reduction in the prices of milk and butter. I call it a phoney war because all it is a way of putting their names out there and giving the impression they are giving a better deal to the consumer. We all want to see mom's purse being protected on a Friday and we want to see the cost of food and shopping being brought down, but we do not want to see it happening at the expense of the producer, whether we are talking about milk or beef. Retailers say there has been a reduction in the basic costs, but we have to look at what they are talking about. Take the cost of energy. Yes, there has been a slight correction. The price of fertiliser has come down a small amount, but look at how it has spiked, whether it is the nuts you buy, the fertiliser or energy. All the costs went up enormously. They have corrected slightly but in no way in the world could anyone say we are back where we were before. The cost to the producer is still enormous and then we have this phoney price war going on and this impression being made that the retailers are doing great for the consumers. They are not, and many of them do not even have the good manners to bank in this country. All they do is take their profit and take it out and then we have to listen to this boast, when they open a new store, that they are creating 70 new jobs. There is nothing about the 140 jobs they knocking out when they close down the smaller shops, the corner shops, and the people who are the backbone of this country. They are shutting down the small family businesses and then boasting about the jobs they are creating.

They want to reduce the price but they want to do so on the backs of the farmers. As a person who produces calves, for example, and rears them to a certain amount, I know what that costs. I know what it costs to keep a cow for 12 months. If you take what it costs to keep a cow for 12 months and take what a calf would make as a weanling, there is no way in the world a producer would room for manoeuvre to take the hit for the reduction these large retailers want to bring. As a person who buys in cattle at the fall of the year and fattens them for the winter, I know exactly what it costs to keep them alive for the winter, whether you are taking them to 450 kg or 520 kg or whether you are taking them to finish them and getting them nearly ready for the factory or ready for the factory. One thing I do know is there not fat in it. There is no margin there that a person might say we, and when I say “we” I mean the farmers in Ireland, will take a hit on it for the big supermarkets. I will not give them the satisfaction of naming them. I heard others naming them here this evening but I will not do that because that is what they want. They want to hear their names out there so that people will get the impression they are doing good by the consumers but they are not.

I know the Minister’s heart is 100% in the right place and he wants to keep the family farms going. I know that; I have seen the way he operates. I know he went around the country and that he listens to farmers, and I appreciate that very much - the Minister knows I do - but I want him to protect those farmers and not to look at these massive retailers. All they are interested in is seeing if can they open another store to cod more people they are doing good by the nation. They are not. They are knocking out all the small shops so that eventually they will have a massive monopoly. The exact same thing happened with the retailing of petrol where there were all these small retailers selling petrol who were knocked out eventually so that the larger retailers could create a monopoly on price and create a larger market share for themselves. We have to protect the people in dairy. There was finger pointing about the production of milk about 12 months ago when it was at a high, and my God, they were entitled to that high, but it did not last for long because milk has gone down dramatically. The income of someone milking 50 or 70 cows will have taken a dramatic hit. The cost of fertiliser is still exorbitant. It has gone nowhere near where it was before. Look at the price of the nuts that you have to give a dairy cow every day, and if you do not give them, they will not give milk. Those nuts are at an enormous price compared with what they were a couple of years ago. I ask the Minister to do anything that can be done to protect the farmer, the dairy man, the people producing beef, the sheep men and the people in pig production. We have to watch out for these people and, of course, the fishermen too.

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