Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Tá mé ag iarraidh ceist an-phráinneach a ardú leis an Cheannaire ar maidin. I will call for an amendment to the Order of Business on a pertinent and immediate issue. I was contacted by concerned farming representatives yesterday. While we have had a debate on the fodder crisis, there is an immediate issue in that 3,000 bales of fodder are sitting in French ports that cannot be moved because of an impasse with the French authorities. There appears to be some kind of an industrial dispute going on and only 120 bales of the 3,000 are being released to be brought to Ireland. The farming community are very happy with the quality of the material that is coming through but something must be done immediately to try to get this issue resolved. Animals are dying on the land, which is not to be over-dramatic about it.

The farming representatives have asked us to call on the Leader to have the Minister come to the House immediately to raise this issue with him. They want him to use his position as the chair of the Council of Ministers to talk to his French counterparts to find whether there is any way to have this impasse resolved in order to get this badly-needed fodder released immediately.

They are also asking when the Government will appoint a Minister of State. They feel the Minister is doing great work but he is no superman, and he has to deal with the CAP negotiations, the CFP negotiations, burger-gate, the fodder crisis and so on. They feel a Minister of State should be appointed immediately to take some of the pressure off the Minister and that this Minister of State would possibly focus fully on the fodder crisis, which is an ongoing crisis.

This is an immediate issue that needs to be dealt with today or tomorrow. We need to bring it to the attention of the Minister as quickly as possible because, if this continues over the weekend, we are going to come back next week with a lot more cattle dead in the fields.