Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)

I am pleased to speak in this debate today on behalf of the Green Party. I thank Sinn Féin for putting forward the motion. The Mercosur agreement and the trade deal that it increasingly looks like this Government is going to support is not just environmentally catastrophic. It will be economically devastating for Irish agriculture. It will open the floodgates to cheap beef from industrial-scale operations across South America, where production costs are minimal. That is due to weak labour law protections, environmental laws that are minimal and a sector that is pumped up with toxic agrochemicals, many of which are actually banned in the European Union. How can Irish family farms compete with beef that is fattened on land that has been ripped from the Amazon and sprayed with substances that would land an Irish farmer in court if he or she used those same substances?

One element of the Mercosur deal that is not being recognised in the Irish context is the chemical warfare embedded in the agreement. While South American agriculture will flow to Europe, that will mean there is a trade imbalance, and that will be evened out by billions' worth of pesticides going the other direction. Many of these are so toxic that the EU has actually banned them: carcinogens that cause cancer; endocrine disruptors that block the body's normal functioning of our hormones; neonic synthetic pesticides that are toxic to pollinators; and chemicals that contaminate the soil and water for generations. In Brazil alone, approvals for highly contaminating and hazardous pesticides have surged in recent years, as have their sales.

Meanwhile, the environmental carnage accelerates. The Mercosur deal rewards more cattle ranching, more soy plantations and more deforestation of the Amazon. Indeed, this deal represents a deforestation machine. It will drive climate collapse while farmers in other parts of the world are working constructively to reduce their own emissions as they are here in Ireland and across the European Union.

Finally, there is the human cost. Indigenous communities are being displaced, poisoned, persecuted and even killed to clear lands for the exports that this deal is designed to boost. This is not modern; it is medieval and is rooted in extraction, exploitation and a fantasy that Europe can outsource environmental damage without moral consequence. I urge Government Members to reject this deal here in Ireland and at European level and to negotiate with their EU counterparts to stop this disastrous deal in its tracks. The EU's integrity demands it, Irish farming families demand it and our climate obligations demand it too.

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