Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome to the House. I think this is the first time I have spoken to him since he took up office. It is a bit late to be congratulating him on his appointment. I congratulate him on the speed at which he picked up the problems associated with where we are right now. He has moved from one crisis into the next crisis. He has done well and shown himself as somebody who is willing to get out there and speak to people on the ground.

The picture we are painting here today is pretty frightening. It is no secret I served in the military and I have seen what tracked vehicles do to agricultural land. I can anticipate the damage that is going to be done to land in Ukraine and it will not be repaired easily. Even if the war were to stop in the morning, it would be very difficult to get that land back up and producing quickly. That is a serious concern.

I am a city boy and have been all my life. For me, milk came in cartons and bread came in wrappers. I never had to think much more about it until now. Every part of our agricultural and fisheries sectors is going to be severely impacted as we move forward. As the Minister rightly pointed out, trawlers going to sea for several days at a time require thousands of litres of diesel, the cost of which is going through the roof. The Government can only do so much. There is a time when one can no longer provide subsidies, cut costs or whatever else, and we are rapidly heading to that position. We are going to have to put a lot of thought into how we allocate resources in the coming months.

We talk about the outrageous behaviour of Russia in the Ukrainian conflict as if it is going to pass in the near future. We have no idea when it is going to stop. We do not know if Putin's war will stop in Ukraine. It may very well move into Macedonia or Poland. Who knows where it is going? Right now, we are in a state of flux and we have no idea where things are going. Ukraine is the bread basket of Europe. Ukraine and Russia produce approximately 30% of the cereal crops required in the world. As we move through this time, the wealthy part of the globe will be able to meet the prices. We will have to cut back on other items but we will be able to meet the prices that will be demanded for cereal crops. My concern is particularly for Africa, which is going to suffer terribly. There are ships off the ports in Ukraine that Putin and his war machine will not allow put to sea. Those ships are loaded with grain in places such as Odessa and Mariupol and have nowhere to go.

Where do we go from here? How are we going to solve this problem? I have no idea. When we talk about agriculture, we talk about the need for fertiliser. A lot of fertiliser over the years has come to Ireland through Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. How are we going to solve that problem in the near future? My colleague, Senator Paul Daly, spoke about putting what is, for all intents and purposes, beef land into tillage. That is going to be a serious problem. The Senator made the point that farmers are now being asked to move away from their area of competence into a new area where they will be involved in planting cereal. The Minister has been good in putting forward supports for them. Teagasc and various other organisations in the State are there to assist them in any way they need but, at the end of the day, we are talking about a major step forward.

Whenever I think of agriculture, I think of my dad, who planted our garden every Good Friday. He went out at 6 a.m. and did not go to bed until it was fully planted and there were enough vegetables to feed us for the best part of the winter. The end of planting season is quite close. We are running into serious trouble in that regard.

I received an email, as did many others, from Growing Media Ireland. It refers to our reliance on peat and its importation, as Senator Paul Daly mentioned. That goes against the green agenda in this country. We are prepared to take peat from somewhere else but we are not prepared to use our own. I understand the problem. I visited Iceland a couple of years ago and Taiwan in 2020. In both those countries, I saw that there can be a very lucrative horticultural business without the use of peat but it requires massive inputs of energy. It is easy in Iceland because the energy is flowing under the ground and it is easy to get to it. We do not have access to energy like that in this country. I am outraged about the closure of the generating system in Derrybrien, Galway. We are in the middle of an international emergency and what are we doing? We are taking apart a generating system in Derrybrien because it did not comply with planning. I do not have a difficulty with the planning issue but there should be a moratorium put on it tomorrow to keep Derrybrien generating until such a time as this crisis has passed. The last thing we need is energy shortages. I believe the Government needs to move to preserve what energy production we have so we can reduce our reliance on other fuels and use them in the agricultural sector.

The Minister has my support for what he is doing. Fair play to him; he is out there on the ground. I know he is very close to those the fisheries industry in his own constituency. They will need massive support.