Joe O'Toole (Independent)

She should note the difference. Vegetables are dumped in north Dublin because they will not pass through the sorters for the Dublin market, while in Provence they would be on display. People will go in and buy a beef tomato with four sides or a hugely distorted pepper. If it looks healthy, clean and luscious, they will buy it. Why does that happen there but not here? That and the Abattoirs Act 1988 must be addressed.

I agree with the point that it is immoral and unethical that the workers in Mallow and farmers supplying them will not get a shilling's compensation for the closure of the beet factory and that €140 million will go to Greencore, which is no longer even an Irish company. Neither is it a beet company, meaning that there are two good reasons not to proceed on that basis. We should go to Irish farmers and tell them what we must do in the future. They must sell such things as bio-fuels, constructing wind energy plants wherever necessary in their areas, as well as many other things on which I cannot elaborate.

Irish farmers and agriculture need our support, as does the Minister. We should plan together to make this work and improve the situation on the ground.