Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I do not blame the Government for this. This is not a political point. With my trade union background, if I had to face into negotiations where the people I represented were paid less now for labour than they were five, six or seven years ago, I would kick the door off the hinges on the way in and no one would leave until we had a deal. I have great sympathy for the farmers in this matter.

Will the Minister take home with him a copy of the Abattoirs Act, throw it in the fire and start again? If the Minister were to visit a hotel close to the Border in his constituency and ask who supplied the steaks the people eat in the restaurant he most likely would be told they are supplied by a butcher from the other side of the Border because the Department here imposes stronger and more stringent requirements on retail butchers than in the North. A butcher who lives next door to a hotel in a small town in the Minister's constituency supplying the local hotel is considered to be a wholesaler. It is difficult enough being a butcher given the regulations with which they must comply as a retailer, but if a butcher becomes a wholesaler the regulations are doubled up with a new set of inspectors. Will the Minister examine this?

When the Minister and I grew up, one bought meat from a local butcher who knew it was from his or her own land, a neighbour's land or from land down the road. It came off the grass and it was clean food and properly put together. When one buys from a local butcher now, however, the chances are that he or she cannot state for sure from where the meat comes. I know I will receive correspondence about traceability but if one walks into an abattoir one will see animals from 25 different areas of the country being killed at the same time. Nobody need tell me one can be sure where an animal goes. Even the design of abattoirs is wrong. Butchers should have their own locked chilling rooms in abattoirs for the meat they kill themselves. The requirements for killing are far too stringent. Local butchers should be encouraged to kill, hang, skin, cut up and serve their own meat. We would then know from where it comes. It is a small matter which would deal with a number of issues.

Every year I walk into French supermarkets and look at the price of Irish lamb. Irish lamb is cheaper in French supermarkets than it is in Irish supermarkets. How can this be? After being carried all the way to France, it is cheaper there. At the same time, Irish farm gate prices for lamb are extraordinarily low while we pay top dollar in the supermarkets. These are the issues we need to examine. We need to support our farmers properly by putting shillings in their pockets and helping them to produce and do their work properly.

We should also examine production methods. People have forgotten the time when no beef was produced on grass. It was all produced through hormones and growth promoters. I wish the Minister well in a difficult job. His focus must stay on the issues he discussed on the radio last week and on the people who depend on agriculture. We need to allow them to make money, earn a living and continue their contribution to the Irish economy and community, particularly the structured rural community throughout the country. They deserve our support and are far more important than the WTO.