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

I support Deputy McNamara's amendment. Like the previous one, it is about protecting farmers. Thinking back to a couple of short weeks ago, the Taoiseach, thankfully - I asked him to do so the day before - met with Macra na Feirme, whose members marched to Leinster House. It was reminiscent of the time, 50 or 60 years ago, that IFA members marched from all parts of this country to Dublin. At that time, Charles Haughey, God be good to him, was the Minister for Agriculture. They marched was because of what they saw as the bad direction in which farming was heading.

We see young people from Macra na Feirme who come to Leinster House worried about the future. It is no wonder if the big conglomerates and the worldwide, domineering retailers think they will dictate price and not protect. Does the Minister think they have any interest in farmers? They do not give a damn about farmers, small farmers, or family farms and their sustainability. The young people who came to Leinster House a couple of weeks ago want to ensure that they will have the right to build a house on their farms so they can carry on, whether it is in dairy, tillage, beef, sheep or the pig industry. All the different agriculture sectors just want to ensure they will be able to make a living. It is not that they want to set the world on fire. They want to be able to do their books at the end of the year and see that their family farm has run at a profit.

Farms cannot run at a profit if we see and allow situations similar to those outlined by Deputy Mattie McGrath. He led a number of us to a certain shop not too far from here. It was disgraceful to see vegetables being given away, when our own horticultural people in Ireland at the time were being crucified by the prices they were being paid so that these headline stores could just boast that if people came to their shops, they would be given vegetables for nothing. That is not sustainable. That is not doing any favours to young people such as those in Macra na Feirme who came here a couple of weeks ago. It does nothing to instil confidence in them, but when they hear the likes of what Deputy McNamara is trying to say this evening with this amendment, they will say, thanks be to God there is a Deputy in the Dáil, and people willing to support that Deputy, who has their interests at heart. That is important.

We want the Minister to those young people that we want them to stay in business and we want them to make a profit by the end of the year. Many people seem to hate the word "profit". They think it is a crime to want to make a profit. They call builders "cowboy builders" and small farmers "ranchers" simply because they have a hatred of work and of the word "profit". They do not seem to understand business at all. It must be understood that farming is a business. It is a small business. Earlier today, Deputy Nolan brought a group of people here to discuss the horrible phrase that is "the rewetting of land". It is all this grandiose idea of protection of the environment. There is nothing at all about the fact that in India half the population, which is millions of people, have no sewerage system whatsoever in their houses. That is a sobering thought. There is no sewerage system whatsoever servicing their houses but, at the same time, we want to rewet our land that people slaved and broke their bones to dry.

I went to work for a farmer in the Black Valley once. Three and a half years later, I came out of the valley with a machine that was new when I went in there. It came out after three and a half years, like myself, hanging by the bones after working for every one of those years to dry the Black Valley. That was an operation in itself. Many years before that, my father had ensured it got electricity. It was one of the last places in Ireland that did. I went in there to dry it and I did dry it. I turned a lot of brown ground green. It beggars belief to think that geniuses in suits and dresses think it is a good thing to say that we will rewet this land. They should go away and do something about the sewerage system in India if they are worried about pollution. They should not be looking at us and talking about rewetting ground. At Deputy Nolan's meeting today, I said I was brought up to believe there were two types of sins, namely venial sins and mortal sins. For anyone to consider or talk about rewetting - whoever dreamed up that word - is a mortal sin. It is like the rewetting of the bogs. That is a sin. I think about the fine people who worked in bogs, for instance for Bord na Móna, an organisation I was brought up to adore. We did not like Bord na Móna, we did not admire it, we adored it for the work it did and for the way people went out and drained the bogs, put down railway tracks and harvested peat. They did great work in bad times and with what we would consider bad machinery, if we look back at what they had to work with at the time in comparison with what is there now. What are they doing now? They are shutting it down. They have shut it down and are talking about rewetting those bogs. At the same time, half of the population of India does not have a sewerage system or a sewerage pipe going to their houses. In Ireland we cannot crown ourselves with glory either because in the majority of counties, the biggest polluter is the local authority. We do not hear about that. That is fine. The Government should go away and sort out the sewerage systems in the small towns and villages where we do not have proper or adequate sewerage systems. It should look after those things and not be talking about rewetting land. It should do everything it can to support the sensible speech made by Deputy McNamara earlier. I thank him for his efforts.

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