Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is a lot of excitement and debate about the COP26 summit, and that debate is very important. However, I want to register my disappointment and anger at the fact that the Israeli energy minister could not access the debate yesterday because she was in a wheelchair and there was no accessible transport for her to enter the summit. It was rectified today, but it sends a very bad message. Let it be a lesson to all of us that, anywhere we are organising anything, there has to be an absolutely accessible place for people to enter and to participate in the debate.

In talking about the debate at COP26, the area of climate change is hugely important to all of us. In the debate that has taken place over the past few weeks, there has been a lot of demonisation of the agriculture sector. In fact, the biggest contributors to emissions are fast fashion and food waste. Some of the statistics are quite shocking. The average household in Ireland wastes 3 kg of food every week. Globally, 25% of food that is produced is wasted. That represents 10% of the emissions.

About two weeks ago I requested that we ask the Minister for agriculture to come to the Seanad to have a debate on CAP. Coincidentally, that was the day the announcement was made on where Ireland is going regarding CAP. We need to have a wider debate on how we support, in particular, progressive commercial farmers, many of whom are in my county of Kildare. I met with them again yesterday and listened to their concerns. In 2016, Kildare alone had €256 million worth of exports. When one looks at the industries we have, such as Glanbia and Kerry Group, chilling, for example, provides a lot of employment. As a county and a country we need to be very proud of what is produced here.

In terms of what is facing us, we have accepted there has to be 85% convergence but there are only five eco-schemes in this country, while there are 20 in France. We need to have a debate about how these schemes can be opened up to help support the very important industry we have.