Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail)

I will be happy to discuss these issues at a later stage with Senator Finucane.

It is clear the Minister, Deputy Cullen, has rural Ireland at heart and has a clear concept and understanding of balancing the needs of all sides. I welcome his deliberations in that regard.

The issue about which I am concerned is that of live exports. Senator Burke and Senator Finucane will be familiar with this issue which is of concern in their areas. The west depends largely on the export of weanlings to support the market. Without the live exporters around the cattle ring in the marts, there will not be a sustainable future for farmers in the west, particularly in light of decoupling and other matters. It is vitally important that the live export trade is maintained. I am disappointed about the breakdown of the talks last night. The Minister has made strong representations to the other member states and all Ministers and their officials have been working over the past number of weeks to bring about a resolution. One state which for political reasons has stood full square and solid in the way of negotiations is Germany. To an extent, the British were on their side. The German Federal Minister of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture, Ms Renate Künast, is a member of the Green Party. It was suggested that the Minister for Agriculture and Food has either created this problem or failed to resolve it. It would be worth noting that the German Green Party was behind the failure to reach consensus in Strasbourg last night.

The Fine Gael Party is working on a strategy to bring the Green Party to Government. I would like to hear clearly from the Green Party and Fine Gael if the deal is worked out in terms of where the parties stand on the issue of live exports from an island nation that depends on them continuing. We have to resolve this issue. Let us not throw mud from side to side. There is a lobby which wants to put farmers out of business completely and not just to prevent the export of live cattle from this country. They would much prefer to see land left idle, growing daisies and populated by butterflies. We have to continue to protect farming.