Michael McCarthy (Labour)

I welcome this debate and I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Killeen, to the House. We are all well aware of this matter and the crisis in the dairy sector has rightly commanded headlines not just in the national media but in the international media in recent days, not least because of the protest in Luxembourg last week.

In listening to the protestors and members of our own delegation from the IFA speaking about the hard-pressed dairy industry and the financial restrictions and challenges faced by farmers, we all too often forget that farmers are subject to income levies and farming took a particular hit in last October's budget. We saw then the abolition of the installation aid and early retirement schemes. I evidenced one example in this House where one household on the night of the budget on 15 October 2008 lost €30,000 as the head of the household had died and the estate had not been sorted out legally. Applications for both schemes had been submitted but they fell dead that night to add to the distress of the household and create an additional financial burden. All too often we forget that.

The accounts given by those at the protest indicated they were struggling to meet household bills and educational costs for children. We can consider attempts made by the Minister for Education and Science to reintroduce fees in some format and this is a significant worry for people in this industry. They are subject to this fear in addition to the challenges facing their sector.

The Minister, Deputy Brendan Smith, spoke about asking the banks to be cognisant of this and give latitude to people. It is appropriate that the Minister of State, Deputy Killeen, is present when I make this point. There are people in the fishing industry in west Cork who are on interest-only loans for boats, which reflects the type of pressure people are under. Farmers are also under this pressure. Asking a bank to be merciful is a bit like saying that we should go to Knock and pray for better conditions for dairy farmers. Leaving something to a bank's discretion, according to evidence, will not deliver the goods for those who are poor or in significant financial difficulty.

I wish Mr. Padraig Walshe well in his presidency of the European farmers' union, Copa. He stated that the European Commission bailed out the banks and the automobile association and that it is now time it bailed out dairy farmers. The Government must indicate to the banks that there should be an element of quid pro quo. The compliant taxpayer has recapitalised banks and bailed them out and it is not that much to ask that banks look sympathetically at individual cases involving farming or fishing families or where there is difficulty with financial debt in household budgets so that there should be some form of quid pro quo.