Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I welcome all the farming organisations here tonight. As a TD from rural Monaghan, I very much support them.

Time and again, Irish farming families have been tasked to rise to challenges, whether it is absorbing inflationary shocks within their already too meagre margins or meeting ever-increasing environmental challenges. They do exactly what is often asked of them. What they expect in return is a Government that puts in place a framework that they can work within. Successive Governments have failed to live up to their part of that agreement. It sometimes seems that farming families in Ireland are bearing witness to a national conversation as to whether their livelihood should be culled. This Government was party to trade negotiations which would see their produce replaced with a lower-quality South American alternative. Assurances offered by successive Ministers were not worth the paper they were written on. The so-called safeguard that emerged has been welcomed or endorsed by virtually no one. This deal will see upwards of 100,000 tonnes of beef and 180,000 tonnes of poultry flood the European market. That produce will not be produced to Irish standards in the context of the use of pesticides, hormones or antibiotics. It is grossly unfair to lecture Irish producers on the environment and animal health, on the one hand, while, on the other, allowing them to be undercut by those not held to the same standards.

This is a bad deal for Ireland and it must be rejected. I say to the Government of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Independents, that they need to stand up against Europe and not let the Mercosur deal happen.

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