Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I concur with the comments of Senator McGreehan with regard to the sheep sector. I recently met with members of the IFA and its sheep committee in my home county. The message they gave to me, as a public representative, is very stark. There are average profits of €7 per ewe, with an average flock size of 75. That is a very small figure for the farm income of more than 35,000 farm families in the sheep sector. I support the Senator's comments. We need an intervention from the Minister and from Government to make sure that we can sustain those farm families. We need to take a proactive view, the same way we did with the beef issue a number of years ago. We see now where the beef sector is in a fairly good position and, indeed, dairy is good, but people in both the sheep and pig industry are not so good. We looked for intervention from Europe to allow us to give state aid to the pig industry last year. We were successful in that. We need to look at going the same route again and going with a minimum of €30 per ewe. We need to intervene. A significant number of families are not in a very good situation.