Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think it was Mick Doyle, a famous Irish rugby player, coach and pundit, who coined the phrase "get your retaliation in early". I am intrigued to see that the Minister has taken that up today in her opening statement by criticising Opposition Members for playing politics. I for one have no intention of playing politics or going for headlines, punchlines or soundbites on an issue that is so important to rural Ireland, not just the agriculture sector or the beef-producing sector but rural Ireland in general. I am a beef farmer so I know what I am talking about in that regard and would never play politics with something so important to a sector that is already on its knees, and has been for several years. Pre-Brexit, the beef sector in this country was in crisis. Brexit has added a hammer blow to that crisis and, irrespective of what the Minister says about its timelines, this almost ratified deal seems to me and other farmers to be a fait accompli. Even if it is 2028 before we see the consequences for Irish farms, for the meat industry and the beef sector, which are price takers and are almost totally dependent on an export market and on a factory system that we all know has problems, the scaremongering has started.

Like Brexit for the past two and a half to three years, the Mercosur deal will be used and has been used as a scaremongering tactic on price fixing. Irish beef farmers started feeling the consequences of this proposal the morning after it was announced and the Minister cannot tell me anything different, such is the nature of the industry. The Minister rightly says, and I am not playing politics because we are almost singing off the same hymn sheet on this issue, that the Government, to judge by commentary in recent days, is opposed to this. I am aggrieved at the Government's progress in officially opposing it and having any effect on the outcome. The Minister says, to make it sound good, that the initial proposal from the South American side was for 300,000 tonnes and is almost praising herself for getting that down to 99,000 tonnes. In 2017, the Government was opposing 70,000 tonnes. Its brilliant negotiating skills to reduce that 70,000 tonnes has resulted in 99,000 tonnes.

While the Minister says the deal will be bound by equivalence and the Paris Agreement on climate change, there does not seem to be, from my reading of it, and I have not read the entire document, which is extensive, any guarantee that the Paris Agreement on climate change or equivalence in the standard of traceability and production imposed on us by the European Commission will have to be met by the South American countries. Their carbon footprint for beef production is four times that of ours. We hear daily when we discuss climate action and climate change the proposal bandied about by most people to reduce our herd and increase our afforestation on the land that would then be freed up. However, an area the size of Croke Park is turned every minute from rainforest in Brazil to beef production land.