Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to talk about the importance of agrifood to the Irish economy. Sometimes agrifood is presented as an established industry, as of course it is, but it is much more than that. Many of us will have been struck that, on the day of Storm Éowyn, when the winds first subsided in communities like mine, the first people we saw engaging in the clear up were not those from the local authority, ESB Networks or any other statutory body but our local farmers who were out clearing the roads and getting involved with the most vulnerable in our communities. That is what our family farmers do. They are integral to our communities and our rural way of life. They are integral to so much more than the top-quality food they put on our tables and export, making Ireland renowned as a producer of the best food in the world, as I would see it.

They need support, however, and they have told us they need support. They need support in a number of different facets. They need support with a fair CAP. The last CAP deal, which was negotiated and supported by the outgoing Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government, essentially meant farmers received less support at a time when they were being asked to do much more. Therefore it is important for the incoming Government to set out very clearly, as Sinn Féin committed to do in our manifesto, that it will be a priority of the multi-annual financial framework of the next EU budget to have an increase in the CAP budget. As Ireland is now a net contributor to that budget, we are in a strong position to argue that the policy area most important to us, the Common Agricultural Policy, should see an increase in funding, considering that we are asking farmers to do much more.

The second area where farmers need strong intervention is that they need fair prices. Everybody knows how much a farmer receives at the marts or the factories. In fact, it is published virtually every week. Everybody knows how much consumers pay in their supermarket or butcher for meat, for example. Nobody knows, however, who is making all the profit in between. We do not have enough transparency and we need fair play.

I welcome that the Minister has indicated probably more firmly than we have heard in this House by a Minister that the Government will oppose the Mercosur trade deal. The Mercosur trade deal needs an active approach by Government. It is insane that we would ask our farmers to do all the things we are asking them to do in terms of animal welfare, biodiversity and climate action while at the same time supporting a trade deal that would involve the absolute destruction of hundreds of thousands of hectares of rainforest and the importation of large quantities of beef.

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