Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Coughlan, and her officials. I am satisfied and supportive of the position that she laid out in her speech. Before coming to sugar and the WTO, I compliment her and her Department on the efficient issue of the single farm payments a few days ago. That means, although this has not been much commented on, that farmers will have a good year this year, and will probably enjoy a double digit percentage increase in income. However, that must not be taken out of context because obviously next year will be somewhat leaner.

Given the last contribution, I must declare an interest in that I am an ordinary member of the IFA since I ceased to be in the advisory branch of the public service. The farm organisations do an excellent job for Irish farmers. I am glad, however, that they are social partners because that means that the type of somewhat unproductive confrontation in the 1980s and earlier, to which Senator Ryan referred, no longer happens.

The sugar negotiations showed the dangers and perils facing us. While we perhaps expect to be able to produce for another couple of years, I am a little shocked that we, alone of all countries, are being effectively knocked out of a business which has been profitable and good for Irish farmers. It throws into a certain light whether Greencore was wise to close down the Carlow plant, which divided farmers among themselves. That did not make the Minister's task any easier. Then there were the divisions between farmers and Greencore.

In general, in negotiation I am not a great believer in unilateral concessions and that also applies to the WTO. To take an analogy from the Northern Ireland negotiations, if, as some parties urged ten years before the Good Friday Agreement, we had unilaterally changed Articles 2 and 3, whether we would have got the Good Friday Agreement, or whether it would have been as comprehensive, is very much open to doubt.

On the WTO, once again the EU has put its house in order and has put the foot forward while others hold back. One perhaps has a situation where the US Congress decides at the end of the day whether it might implement what is agreed. We need to be extremely wary of those situations.

Another unfortunate fact is that people, who one cannot entirely blame, facing the EU see that it is internally divided. There are people like the British Chancellor, Gordon Brown, MP. Even Commissioner Mandelson had a go at Gordon Brown the other day, effectively arguing that more concessions must be made. Quite obviously, one or two countries do not believe in the CAP and would be glad to see it go. Can one be surprised that other countries are pushing and pressing for concessions?

I somewhat resent the "tugging at the bleeding hearts" syndrome. Recently, I shared a platform with a representative from Oxfam to discuss the WTO and sugar and was quite shocked. While I contribute to Oxfam and its representative was a decent individual, the shallowness of its argument shocked me. It failed to make any distinction between what are now euphemistically called advanced developing countries like Brazil, and ACP countries, which will lose out as far as sugar is concerned. We must be clear about what is at issue, namely, a clash of interests. In the main, we are not talking about the poorest of the poor, whose interests are being cared for by various initiatives. One must bear in mind that it is almost always the strong, who are not always the greatest respecters of rules, who preach free market liberalisation. Back in the 1980s, we had, as we still do, a comparative advantage in the production of milk. Did that mean that other states without that advantage closed down their milk industries, thereby allowing us to produce for our advantage? Of course it did not, as Ireland is a small country. Hence, one must be wary of some of those arguments.

My final point is that food, even more than oil, is essential for security. We have an absolute right to produce an adequate amount of food to supply people's needs. We do not know what hazards may arise in the future, in the form of political or environmental disruption. Hence, I wish the Minister well in continuing to fight the good fight. She will have the full support of everyone in this House and hopefully of practically everyone in the country.