Michael McCarthy (Labour)

I express my gratitude to the Minister for Agriculture and Food, my constituency colleague and a former Member of this House, for taking time out of his busy schedule to be with us this afternoon. Unfortunately, I do not agree with much of what he said on this matter, or on many matters relating to the threat to this important part of the fabric of rural life.

On the beef dispute, we have heard some flattering statements about egotistic politicians but the lack of intervention in the beef dispute was comical. On the recent beef protests, the Minister stated:

I was concerned that the disagreement between suppliers and factories could have given rise to a situation where the sector as a whole might suffer as a result of interruption of supplies of beef to our main markets. Fortunately, this has been avoided and I welcome the fact that slaughterings are continuing as normal.

Slaughterings are continuing as normal but it is not because the Minister, the Ministers of State or the Taoiseach made a reasonable effort to prevent the dispute from taking place or to prevent it from continuing for weeks. The industry was under enough pressure and for the Government to sit idly by and to wait for a dispute of that magnitude to be resolved or for a mysterious intervention by a fairy godmother was unbelievable given the current economic climate in which many sectors find themselves, not least the farming community. Where there is potential for such a dispute in any area of agriculture, there should be a mechanism in place to appoint a conciliator or a facilitator to resolve it with as little interruption to the industry as possible and to bring all areas of agriculture back to the grindstone. The best interests of agriculture must be maintained by the Government.

I refer to the mid-term review of CAP. Recently, the Nice treaty received a resounding endorsement from the people. I was a strong exponent of a "Yes" vote in the Nice treaty. One of the implications of a "No" vote would have been to send the Minister for Agriculture and Food to Brussels with his two hands tied behind his back. Thankfully, that did not happen because the country accepted enlargement. The Minister is now in a position of strength and can go to Brussels to negotiate the best possible package for the farming community. The word "review" is probably not the best word to use in regard to CAP. The word "reform" was probably what the Commission had in mind when it came to tinkering with the details of the Agenda 2000 agreement signed in 1999. This is probably one of the main criticisms of the recent announcement and one with which I sympathise.