Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the staff in the Seanad and across the Houses. I hope everyone has a restful summer break.

I want to briefly bring up the documentary that was shown on RTÉ about dairy farming about which there has been much discussion. It did not just cover dairy farming, obviously. It also covered live animal exports. There were scenes of young calves that were kicked and thrown from their trailers. There were really difficult scenes involving calves that were exported live. Some of these very young bull calves went for 21 hours without milk to mainland Europe. There are supposed to be mandatory rest periods. That is EU law. There were also examples of drivers themselves breaching their own takt time, which even from a workers' rights perspective is an issue.

We have had a real intensifying of dairy farming practices over the past few years since the abolition of quotas. I come from a farming background so it was really difficult to watch this. We have a tillage farm now, but it was incredibly difficult. I know there are other farmers who found it very difficult to watch. It also came back that many of those bull calves are seen as practically worthless. We are not seeing the sustainable just transition we should see. Money was found for vast dairy expansion a number of years ago and I wonder when or if we will see the money to help and support farmers to encourage sustainable, renewable agricultural practices. We need to have a debate in this House on live exports and whether they should be banned - there is a global movement towards that - and a debate on the sustainable future of farming here in Ireland. The footage that was shown on Irish television screens was both horrific and absolutely, utterly immoral.