Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. It is not just today or yesterday that farmers were let down by Governments, but repeatedly. We have the proof of that and we only have to look back at the beef tribunals to see what happened and to examine the pathway of payments to politicians, including some who stand up here now and pretend that they are the saviours of the farming community. It was proven without a doubt that there was a direct correlation between payments made to the Fianna Fáil party and its decisions. We have to be honest about it. Injustice and unfairness in the sector has been allowed to continue and it has been facilitated by successive Governments. The unfairness in the pricing and the undermining of the beef sector and suckler farmers, especially in the west, has to stop. That is why I welcome the Beef Plan Movement and other farming organisations that have come out, stood up and said, "Enough is enough".

The beef sector is a €2.5 billion industry. Why have these companies been allowed to create a situation where there is a lack of competition in the processing sector? That should not have been allowed to happen but it has happened. Companies are unlimited and, therefore, there is no transparency. It is okay to say that the margins are small but the money is going somewhere, and certainly not to farmers, including farmers in Mayo. I welcome that there appears to be a commitment to set up an independent regulator to examine the sector. The fact that the CCPC could assess that it was illegal to even discuss the price of beef says something about us as a nation. We cannot have transparency where we have a controlled market. The Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine recommended that the meat market observatory set up at EU level would be helpful in introducing transparency as well.

Something else that needs to be done and that has been discussed relates to producer groups. Could these producer groups be supported under one of the measures of the LEADER programme? We need to resource producer groups to allow them to set up in the first instance and to be facilitated. We cannot expect farmers to do the work involved in setting up such groups. They are working as it is. Nobody else would work for the amount a farmer is paid per hour.

The beef sector is worth €500 million to the Mayo economy. There are 5,350 beef-only farmers, 2,800 mixed farmers and 73,000 cows. It is not just about the money that is produced through that but the multiplier effect in communities such as the one I come from, which is crucial to the survival of places in Mayo and other communities and towns in rural Ireland. They are dependent on this activity, particularly veterinarians, chemists, fencing suppliers and so on. We need to be careful that we do not let all that go down the pan. It is within our gift to take urgent and immediate action. Regarding profitability, according to Mayo's Teagasc e-profit monitor, the average return is €464 per ha. That includes CAP payments. If the CAP payments are taken out, there is a loss of €16 per ha. That should tell the Minister the importance of the new round of the CAP that is being negotiated and what we need to do for our farm families in that negotiation.

Other programmes within the beef sector such as the BDGP, the beef environmental efficiency pilot, BEEP, and BEAM are too complicated in some cases and do not give sufficient financial return. We need to examine the financial return from those, the time they take for farmers, and make adjustments to make them easier to access. We cannot hope to entice young people into the farming sector with figures such as that. Nobody will encourage young people to take up farming unless we address the issues involved, including price volatility and low margins. We need a base price so that farmers know they are guaranteed a certain minimum output for what they put in. The inequalities within farming must end. We have seen it repeatedly with the larger farmers and in the reference years, 2000 and 2001. Something rotten has been allowed to happen in the farming industry to create this inequality and unfairness.

The farmers I know do not want to be dependent on grants. They want to produce a quality product and get a fair price for it. I encourage the setting up of the national beef scheme, which will cost just €160 million. It is one of the recommendations of the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association, INHFA, to support the industry. Let us work together, have a bit of honesty and address the beef crisis. A storm is approaching Mayo as we speak and Senator Mulherin and I will head west. There is also a storm in farming that needs to be addressed. We need to see how the impact of the storm over the next few days will eat into the profitability of farmers. It is worrying for the industry and for rural Ireland, which is dependent on agriculture, and always will be, to be successful.