John Dardis (Progressive Democrats)

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Joe Walsh, to the House. In particular, I welcome the fact that he has responded so quickly to the requests made last week for a debate on this very important topic. I hope Senator Quinn will not be replacing all his good Irish carbohydrate potatoes with dairy products on his shelves because I think there is a place for both. I would not suggest that he would do that.

What the Minister has achieved is quite singular and he is to be greatly commended for it. It is worth recalling that when these proposals were published they were quite devastating in their effect. There was an enormous challenge facing the Minister and his officials in dealing with the original Fischler proposals. The way they have been modified is a credit to the Minister. It demonstrates the value of experience in this area. The Minister is now the most senior of his colleagues in Europe. That was to his advantage in the context of these talks.

The response of the leader of the main farming organisation on the morning the package was announced was facile. When the ministers appeared after an all-night session he suggested that the Minister for Agriculture and Food had been worn down by the Commissioner keeping them up all night, and that as a consequence his critical faculties had been somewhat eroded. The Minister has been through enough of these meetings to know that all-night sessions are a common feature. If one goes back to the time of Mark Clinton and Jim Gibbons, his predecessors, they did exactly the same thing, so it is not new. If one is going to cut a deal one is obviously going to stay there to do it. Many a farmer has stood all day long at a crossroads in various places around the country, with a couple of cattle, in the knowledge that by the time they went home that evening the deal would be cut. They stayed there until it was done. The Minister's experience of west Cork stood to him in that respect.