Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. It goes without saying that Irish farmers produce top quality food to a very high standard but, unfortunately, farming without CAP would not be sustainable. To ensure long-term food security, we need to see a CAP that is fair to all farmers.Some farmers claim in excess of €100,000 per year in farm payments. In 2020, for example, 20 farmers claimed €3.6 million. It was farming enterprises, not the small family farm. They claimed €3.6 million in payments. We need to see a CAP that is fair and payments that are front-loaded to support small- and medium-sized family farms. Sinn Féin has been calling for a full convergence and to end the inequality of making payments based on reference years from many years ago. The current and previous CAP are based on partial convergence and that needs to end.

Irish farmers have shown themselves more than willing and able to change farming practice to ensure they are doing their utmost to protect the environment. However, to do so, they need to be properly compensated. Payments and schemes such as the ACRES payment are all fine and well if they work well, but they are not working well. Many farmers are awaiting payments from those schemes for months and sometimes years. Prior to any scheme being introduced by the Department of agriculture, there needs to be consultation with farming organisations and other stakeholders to ensure it has a straightforward, not overly complex application system, and it is not full of red tape and bureaucracy as the current schemes are. Payments should be made in a timely fashion. Farmers cannot afford to wait months and years for their payments. They need them paid in the time they are expected.

Compensation of €5 million to forgotten farmers was announced in the budget. I ask the Minister to provide details on how that will be spent. The young farmers who lost out on installation aid in the aftermath of the recession and then did not qualify for the young farmer supports in CAP 2015 because they were farming for five or more years need the compensation. I am not sure €5 million will be sufficient but it is a start. I ask for details on how that will be distributed among the affected farmers.

Regarding Mercosur, Sinn Féin has opposed Mercosur. I have been speaking in opposition to Mercosur for the past six years. It is not a good trade deal. Irish beef farmers produce high-quality beef for the EU market. We are one of the top producers of beef in the EU market. If South American beef is allowed to come into the market, we know that beef does not meet the same animal health and welfare standards. It will be cheaper cuts and a lower standard of beef. It will adversely affect us. The Government needs to do more to ensure it is protecting Irish farming from trade deals such as Mercosur and ensure our farmers are not adversely affected.

I grew up on a small family farm. My parents worked that farm. They did not have to work off-farm to make a living. There were ten of us on the farm. The farm now would not be at all sustainable because of its size. Small farms have got bigger and bigger because small farmers have to get out of farming as they cannot survive. Many young farmers I talk to do not want to continue the family farm because they know if they do, they will end up working two jobs. They will have to work the farm but they will also have to take up a job to subsidise their income because they will not be able to make sufficient income to live on.

Much more needs to be done to put protections in place for small- and medium-sized Irish farms to ensure they can continue producing the top-quality food they do.