Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and thank him for his presentation. I accept that I will be commenting on matters raised by previous speakers but it is important that emphasis should be placed on certain aspects of CAP reform.

On convergence, the key question for Fianna Fáil relates to where responsibility regarding paying for overall increases should fall. For example, farmers on over €400 per hectare are overpaid based on livestock criteria. I welcome the agreement negotiated by the Minister in respect of single farm payments. In the coming five to six years the 60% average should result in those who live in the county in which I and Senator Comiskey reside receiving increased payments. This does not just apply to those on the western seaboard. One of the suggestions made in the debate which took place prior to and during the CAP negotiations was that only those in severely disadvantaged areas would benefit and that so-called productive farmers would lose out. I have never been able to find a definition but I presume the term "productive farmer" relates to the big grassland farmers who operate in the Golden Vale. Kilkenny is supposedly a very rich farming area. However, there are some 1,473 farmers in that county who are on incomes of less than €10,000. In the Minister's county, Cork, the number of such farmers is over 7,000. The suggestion that the new average would only apply in certain parts of the country is incorrect. I am glad, however, that farmers in my county and similar counties will hopefully receive significant increases as a result of the new convergence arrangements. A question arises with regard to how the Minister intends to manage the system in the context of the flexibility built into it. What sort of levels will be imposed? Have matters reached that stage yet or are other issues still being addressed?

It is disappointing that the rural development budget under Pillar 2 was reduced even further to €85 billion during the final negotiations. The new figure represents a 14% reduction. What has happened in this regard highlights the need for the Government to match EU funding in respect of rural development schemes on a 50-50 basis. I am not sure whether the Minister has been vocal in respect of this matter but the IFA has certainly voiced its views. Perhaps he might outline his thinking on how the Government, in light of our current straitened circumstances, is going to match funding from the EU.

There are a couple of side issues which arise in the context of the overall CAP reform package. The first of these relates to the impact of the recently concluded trade agreement between the EU and Canada. The initial reaction is that this agreement will post a threat to the pork and beef sectors in Ireland. I had the honour to be a member of the delegation from the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine which visited Berlin for International Green Week earlier this year. When we were out in Berlin in the evenings, we were struck by the number of restaurants highlighting the fact that they had Argentinian beef on their menus. That was the first occasion on which I had ever seen this. The beef in question was being sold at premium prices on the basis that it was an attraction. There were billboards and blackboards outside of the restaurants to which I refer proclaiming the availability of Argentinian beef. In other words, it was being used as a catch-all in order to attract customers. I am concerned that this might be repeated in Ireland in the near future, when we will see similar blackboards outside restaurants here advertising the availability of Canadian beef at premium prices and proclaiming the latter to be better than Irish beef.

My final question relates to the ending of sugar quotas. There is general agreement that a mess was made of the termination of the sugar industry in this country. To put it another way, and acknowledging that hindsight is 20-20 vision, if matters had been handled better we might still have a sugar industry. However, we will never know for sure whether the latter would have proved to be the case. The Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine debated this matter at its meeting yesterday. I was not at that meeting but Senator Ó Domhnaill informs me that one of the conclusions arrived at is that a cost-benefit analysis or something similar should be carried out in respect of the viability of resurrecting the sugar industry here and that we should not just leap back in with our eyes closed only to discover that it is not viable. I understand that this is one of a series of recommendations which will be submitted to the Minister in the not too distant future. Perhaps he might outline his views on this matter.