Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I met them on Friday and they were not happy with the meeting they had with the Minister last week. That is why they marched on the Taoiseach's office. I believe the Minister is a person who likes to find a compromise and I hope a compromise in this case will be found.

I hope a compromise in this case could be found.

The case of the hen harrier drags on and has left farmers in dire straits. They are disillusioned and discouraged from participating in environmental schemes. The common good is of course served by protecting the environment, and incentives must be designed to serve the common good and support farmers to remain active on their land.

As has been said, next year we will see the end of milk quotas and predictions are that dairy farmers' incomes will drop by up to 10%. We share those concerns. While this is forecast under Food Harvest 2020, we also see plans to expand our dairy herd, which brings us into conflict with the aim of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. We need much clearer action from the Government to address this anomaly. Our representations and participants in EU negotiations must strongly defend our strong agrifood dependence as an economy and emphasise the successes, albeit limited, achieved in reducing emissions, such as, for example, forestry, clean energy, general awareness of the environment and the need to reduce emissions in farming.

Ireland's agriculture should be viewed as a valuable resource in maintaining food security for Europe and the Government must argue this point vehemently, rather than allowing greenhouse gas emissions to be the main focus of our position. It must be possible to work against greenhouse gas emissions without compromising our capacity to be a valuable food producer. As the world's demand for food increases dramatically, this is our trump card not only for feeding a growing world population, but also for maintaining a rural way of life here based on sustainability and the preservation of the rural traditions which we value as a nation.

The small farmers on the west coast are very important to our economy and to sustaining our communities. They feel they have been left behind and that the emphasis is on viability and larger farmers. We need to make sure that imbalance is not allowed to continue.