Pat O'Neill (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to discuss this very important issue for the economy. The CAP negotiations have been ongoing for the past two years since the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, took office. When the Commissioner and the Commission released the first proposals, Ireland was facing doomsday in respect of flat rate payments. Under the Minister, especially during the Irish Presidency of the European Union, we emerged with a deal based on an Irish model. That this deal has been done proves the skill of the Minister and the esteem in which he is held by the other Ministers in Europe. It is an excellent deal for Ireland. The next month or six weeks will be very important with regard to the announcement to be made. The Minister said he had sent 44 questions to people about how CAP funding would be redistributed and received 46 submissions in return. That shows how important agriculture is in this country. When the CAP negotiations have been completed, the Minister might be moving on to greener pastures, but we hope it is not Angola, as is said about certain other areas, because he has done an excellent job in the agriculture sector.

The budget is part of CAP reform, too. When one sees what we have had to confront in austerity budgets for the past few years, one can see that the Minister has defended agriculture. The introduction of the genomic scheme this year for beef and calves is excellent. We must support rural Ireland. Senator Sean D. Barrett spoke about rural Ireland and the supports it needed, but his theme went wrong with his description of them as subsidies. I do not call them subsidies. It is a single farm payment and it is made to support rural Ireland. Ireland has a tradition of having family farms. We do not have an English or New Zealand model; it is not a factory farm. We have family farms which must be supported to keep people in rural areas.

What has benefited the economy most in the past two and a half years has been the growth in the agriculture industry. Agricultural exports have helped our GDP. One also sees it in the innovation of companies such as the Kerry Group, Glanbia and Dairygold. They are now market and world leaders with different products and we can be proud of them. They are gearing up for the challenges that will be faced in the next five to ten years in agriculture.

One of the major aspects of CAP reform, leaving aside equalisation, is that some people believed they were hard done by under the last agreement.

There were people involved in the sheep sector fattening heifers and people involved in the dairy industry who ended up with a small single farm payment. This new agreement will have to compensate them for what has happened as a matter of history. That is important. The ones who are producing are the ones who do not sit back and continue to produce. We have earned a reputation worldwide for the quality and traceability of our food, the sustainable way in which the agriculture sector is run and its safety. It is important for us to maintain this reputation.

Farmers should not be afraid of the greening issue under the CAP. Greening is part of the wider picture in the way food is produced. Let me offer an example. Last Monday, for the first time, I received a printout of emissions on my farm. There were four graphs showing what the national averages were and where my farm was in that context. This is something that was introduced as a reform under the Minister. The aim is to ensure that when we sell a pound or kilo of steak in Germany, we can say what the CO2 emissions were in producing that piece of beef. That is something for which the world is looking because it wants to see what is happening.

To reiterate, this measure is being introduced to support family farms and rural Ireland. The milk quota subsidy will disappear in 2015 and the sugar quota in 2017. I congratulate the Minister on the excellent negotiations that took place on sugar quotas and hope the sugar industry can again be successful in this country. We are going to see growth in milk production. Companies such as Glanbia and the Kerry Group have put their plans in place to deal with the issue of extra capacity. It is important and germane to these negotiations that young people enter agriculture. They are energetic and have new ideas as to how the sector can be run. They train in agricultural colleges. A few years ago being involved in agriculture was not sexy. Young people did not become involved; they went to college, trained or went into the building business. In the past three or four years, however, as the building industry declined, places in agricultural colleges have become very important. The Minister negotiated with the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, to have more teachers employed in these colleges to train students properly. I reiterate that it is important to get young people to become in agriculture, as they are the ones with new ideas to drive us on in the 21st and 22nd centuries. There is a future for farming, a sector which has been well led by the Minister. I congratulate him on the CAP negotiations. I was not being disrespectful when I wished him the best in Angola, but I imagine he will be going somewhere.