Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Mairead McGuinness, MEP, to the House. I am delighted we are represented so brilliantly in Europe by a female Fine Gael member. My question may be an innocent one to which Ms McGuinness may have a general answer. Ms McGuinness stated that in 1973, 263,000 people were working on farms or in the farming industry and that this reduced to 85,000 in 2012 and in the same breath used the word "progress". In what way is it good that fewer people are working on the land? Should we not be encouraging more people to work on the land? Without nature, we are going nowhere. We certainly cannot be depending on the banks or insurance companies. I would recommend that Senators read the recently published book, entitled What Has Nature Ever Done For Us, by Mr. Tony Juniper, which is interesting. The chain of how we live is dependent on nature. I am interested in hearing Ms McGuinness's response on how she can use the word "progress" in relation to a massive decline from working on the land, which in my view is highly contradictory.