Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House to hear the observations and concerns we have about the agriculture and fisheries sectors across the island as a result of the Brexit vote. This is the third such statement I have made on the subject in this Chamber. I am more than happy to highlight the issues facing the agriculture and fisheries sectors that I hear from farmers and fishermen who have appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. This highlights the crazy situation that the Tory government has led its citizens and the rest of Europe into. It is clear that not the Tory government, the European authorities or our Government, of which the Minister is part, knows where we are going on this issue. What has come out of the visits by the Minister’s colleagues to this House when I and other Seanadóirí made similar statements? Rather than Ministers with various other responsibilities coming in here to listen to similar statements every month or so we need a dedicated minister for Brexit who will run the committee on Brexit in tandem with his or her office that will have real teeth to deal with this issue. This arrangement could invite stakeholders from every Department and examine the daily fallout, which is only going to get worse. I would like the Minister to take the suggestion back to the Taoiseach and consider it wisely. We have statements in this House and the Dáil practically every week yet no one has full responsibility. We are drifting into an abyss. The hard rhetoric of the British Prime Minister and other British Ministers is particularly worrying. It seems to be becoming entrenched and can only mean one thing for this island, which would be an unmitigated disaster for all of us, a hard Border.

I spoke about the practicalities of day-to-day life in the Border counties in my previous statements and the direct impact on people’s lives. Together with other political, business, farming, tourism and community representatives, I recently attended a protest at the Border at Bridgend between Donegal and Derry. There were considerable tailbacks at a Border checkpoint set up to demonstrate the impact this would have. What will happen when this becomes a reality, with tailbacks, document checking in different jurisdictions in respect of agriculture for slaughtering and processing but even worse, tariffs and taxes?Product prices and price volatility in agriculture were already in upheaval even before the impact of Brexit. This was due to trade restrictions with Russia, possible trade deals with the US and Canada, problems with the payment of schemes, the merger of major processing companies here in the form of the ABP-Slaney deal and the poor weather conditions. Brexit has compounded them. With Brexit we have currency volatility, regulation and origin issues, bureaucracy and security issues, potential recession and decreasing purchasing power.

For the ordinary farmer and farming lobby groups following these proceedings, I suggest a number of supports from the EU and Ireland, which would work towards reducing price volatility and stabilising prices. From an EU point of view, these supports should include a commitment to provide direct market intervention for beef if prices collapse in response to a UK-Mercosur deal, the introduction of temporary export refunds to help develop non-EU markets for Irish exports, flexibility on future CAP payments to allow member states to link payments back to supporting active food producers and security around future budgets. Interventions the Government could carry out include aggressively pursuing markets, particularly the Chinese market for Irish beef, continuing to develop relations with the UK market and strengthening the Irish food brand in the UK in particular. We need to remember and be conscious that the people who are most exposed to Brexit are British farmers. Therefore, we should be lobbying them to prevent their Government from allowing their market to be flooded with cheap goods from other markets and should convince them of the importance of sourcing products from their neighbours. We should also streamline taxation rules on supply of goods and services North and South. Those are some ideas we would put to the Minister.

On the issue of fisheries, as a Donegal man I am aware from talking to the members of coastal communities that many of them have been impacted by Brexit. They have raised the obvious issues of currency volatility, the decrease in profits as a result of that and the issue of territorial waters and how that will play out, particularly as one crosses from Donegal into the waters across from us. There are serious issues for the fisheries community that need to be understood.

To lessen the volatility brought about by the changes in the rate of sterling, we should utilise flexibility to provide direct financial supports to farmers under EU state aid rules in the form of short-term cashflow financing, provide an increase in funding for farms schemes and increase competition in the banking sector, thereby providing additional sources of finance to decrease borrowing costs. The Irish Government must ensure early agreement and certainty on EU and CAP budgets up to 2020. We need firm action. I have outlined our proposals as to how we do that and I stand over them. We need an accountable, dedicated minister for Brexit. We need a direct committee and we need to put in place supports such as the ones I put forward.

I would also like to raise the issue of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, deal. It seems the regional Belgian authorities, thankfully, have scuppered this agreement and Irish farmers will be happy. The Minister is fully aware that this House passed a motion rejecting CETA. Why was this democratic decision not respected? Senior Ministers were still out lauding and promoting the passing of this deal against the wishes of the Seanad. It seems ironic that the Minister is in here listening to a debate about price volatility in agriculture when the Government was going to sign up to a deal that was going to flood our market with lower quality produce. Irish farmers need to be aware of who were the chief proposers of this deal. In the past the Minister's colleagues in government were calling for a green jersey to be worn in another period of economic uncertainty. I argue that in this Brexit period it is as important to don that same green jersey. The consequences of not playing our part and of not putting on that green jersey and playing as part of a team are devastating. This is too important a period to be going off in tangents. Let us do this collectively. Let us do it for the farmers. Let us do it for the fishermen. Let us do for the communities. Let us do it for the businesses and, most importantly, let us do it for our country.