Joe O'Toole (Independent)

Go raibh míle maith agat. Ar an gcéad dul síos ba mhaith liom a rá leis an Aire nua comhgairdeachas as ucht a phost nua a fháil agus de bharr seo a bheith ina bhall den Rialtas nua. It is well deserved for a diligent hardworking politician and I congratulate the Minister. I look forward to him doing well.

Like the previous speaker, I also listened to the Minister on "Farm Week" which, incidentally, is one of the better programmes on RTE and should be required listening for every public representative. On a week by week basis it gives an insight into farming and rural Ireland which is, as a general rule, missing. In my opinion RTE runs the repeat of that programme too close to the next edition, as it goes out on Friday night and again on Saturday morning. More space should be allocated between editions when people can pass the word to others that the programme is worth catching. Time and time again, the programme strikes a chord with anyone who has an interest in what it does. It is superb.

I ask the Minister to be careful with regard to the WTO. I read and listened to the Minister's speech and I do not disagree with anything in it. However, I have fundamental difficulties with it. Prior to going any further with this, will the Minister look back at what happened in Irish agriculture in the 1990s? Irish farmers were misled by their elected leaders and every political party to believe that in some way Irish beef prices would be different from global prices. We had this debate during the 1990s when farmers had a go at every Commissioner for Agriculture. I got tired of defending Commissioners for Agriculture and Ministers with responsibility for agriculture, including Ivan Yates, Ray MacSharry and various other people, who were doing their best.

Let us all get behind this issue and recognise it is not about a veto. In point of fact, a veto has no place in a democratic structure. The idea that one person can overrule the rights of the majority is wrong but this is a debate for another day. I hope it does not come to the Minister having to use the veto. If it exists, of course it should be used if it is necessary to do so. My view, however, is that a veto can never be justified in a democratic structure.

We need to consider the Treaty of Rome writ large. The only reason we have WTO talks is that we dumped on the Third World and the developing world and we did not allow world farming to develop. Reference was made already to the fact that after millennia of encouraging farmers and farming to increase production, to refine production methods and to become more efficient, we came up with set-aside, food mountains and producing food we do not need. The Minister has responsibility with regard to world food prices and world hunger and we need to consider these in global negotiations.

If the Minister could arrange tomorrow morning for the Treaty of Rome — in other words free movement of trade, goods and labour — to be in force throughout the world we would not be having this conversation because everything would sort itself out very quickly. However, western countries can dump food with export subsidies to cheap and poor countries in Africa. This would be fine if the workers in those countries could go to the United States or to Europe and earn money at the same level. We would finally have an equation. Eventually, this will happen and we will have a levelling off. The WTO is about how we guide this and have fairness while protecting our industry.

This issue is not about the WTO or the European veto. It is about a fundamental point, namely, the income farmers receive. It is appalling. As a trade unionist, I am appalled at the level of income on which colleagues in the farming industry must live.