Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)

What the Minister calls agricultural sensitivities, we see as a real threat to Irish agriculture and Irish farm families the length and breadth of our State. It is a real kick in the teeth to farmers who have to bend over backwards and work so hard to meet regulation after regulation. They have to meet a bar that is set so high, and they meet it, high as it is, yet they then see the real possibility of tens of thousands of tonnes of beef coming into the EU totally unregulated.

I grew up on a beef and suckler farm. I have lived on it my entire life. We recently had our Bord Bia inspection and audit.

It is important to recognise the amount of work that goes into that. There must be a record of every receipt for every bag of meal and medicinal product purchased, every detail on every medicine for every animal, including when it was administered and the quantity, and every detail on batch numbers for feed, along with a record of every single detail that goes into the work farmers have to do day in, day out to ensure they meet standards and their traceability obligations. Every movement of every animal must be accounted for. If you have a cat on your farm, that cat has to have had a tablet. That is the standard Irish farmers and their families are held to when they face audits and inspections.

The nub of the issue here is that Irish farmers work extremely hard. They have to in order to do what they do. For a lot of them, it is about a love of the land and the farm. It is about family and generations. It is about so much more than profit, which many farmers do not make to begin with. What we have heard here tonight will not fill them with confidence. Deputy Heydon, as the Minister for agriculture in Ireland, was not in a position to say that he rejects and opposes Mercosur. He has not said that, and I do not think that will fill farmers with faith.

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