Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I give considerable credit to the work small farmers are doing - people who are struggling and are not supported by the Government. I do not give any credit to the Government, which simply does the bidding of the agribusiness lobby at the expense of the environment and at the expense of small farmers. The Minister likes to hide the reality of farming behind the phrase "family farms". Obviously, the vast majority of farmers in this country struggle and are genuinely small family farms.

Let us consider where CAP money goes. The top eight recipients of CAP in Ireland received over €200,000 each. Is Larry Goodman a family farmer?

Are John and Peter Queally, the owners of Dawn Meats who are receiving €191,000, family farmers? Is that who the Department is representing? Does the Minister agree with the fact that 80% of the money goes to 20% of the farmers? He pretends to represent the interests of ordinary farmers. He does not. He represents the interests of massive farms and big agribusiness. That is who the Department serves, not ordinary family farmers who are failed by what it is doing here. According to organisations representing 50% of farming organisations:

The proposed simplification rules will ultimately only exacerbate discontent in the farming community as they neither support farmers in increasing their resilience nor do they address the real issues that farmers face, which is the lack of fair prices for their products and lack of a decent income.

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