Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

All of my life in politics, I have talked to farming families who are asked to adhere to the highest standards possible. That is why we have world-class products when we talk about grass-fed Irish beef, the pride of the world. We are the highest exports in the European Union. Our farmers have been asked to bend over backwards again and again to comply with environmental standards. They have been held up as a scapegoat around climate change again and again. That is what they have had to put up with. It is galling and sickening, therefore, to have the same European Commission that demanded the highest standards possible in the world for our produce to then have produce at a whole different scale competing with us. This is absolute madness.

I commend Deputies Kenny and Newsome Drennan on bringing the motion forward. I thank all the representatives of the farming organisations in the Public Gallery tonight. They are standing up for their communities and saying not to take them for granted. The Government should not take their support for granted. They are putting it to the Minister to stand up to the hypocrisy and the double standards, so that everything that is said by the European Commission and all the agricultural policies are held to scrutiny like never before, and that the Minister should build support across Europe to stop this and put an end to it, to say that we have standards in Europe and that if you want to come into this market and compete, you must reach those standards too. It could not be simpler. It really is straightforward. It is over to the Minister now. I look forward to hearing what he has to say.

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