Cathal Byrne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As this is my first interaction with the Minister of State in the House, I wish him the best of luck in his role for the term ahead.

I wish to address Ireland's upcoming EU Presidency and the opportunities it brings for Ireland. Specifically, I want to speak about three key areas, the first of which is the further integration of banking across the EU. It should not be the case that an individual can go into a bank in another European country and put money on deposit at a higher rate than is available to depositors here in this country, or borrow money at a lower rate than can be accessed here. This applies particularly to house building, people looking to take out a mortgage to buy their first home, or business people or small businesses seeking to expand. We have to look more closely at greater integration across the European banking market.

Second, I will address a point that the Minister of State raised relating to competitiveness. We have seen from multiple reports, including the Draghi report on EU competitiveness, that competitiveness across the EU is a major issue for us. In a worldwide economy, with more trading and the issues we are seeing with tariffs under the Trump Presidency, we have to get to grips with the issues relating to competitiveness in the EU. It is not sufficient to simply identify what the problems are in reports; these need to be actioned. I hope that, as part of our EU Presidency, we will be focused on competitiveness.

Regarding agriculture, I again highlight the need for greater measures to be taken by the EU Commission to incentivise and encourage young farmers into farming. As has been said in the House before, the reality is that without farmers there is no food. At the moment the statistics are quite bleak. Some 12% of farmers across the EU are aged under 40 and only one in 20 farmers in Ireland are currently under the age of 35. If farming is not profitable for individual farmers, young farmers simply will not take up the profession. My father and uncle farm in Wexford but neither I nor my two brothers directly make our living from farming. Unfortunately, that is a reality faced by more and more families across the country. During our EU Presidency we will be in a position to address this as part of the CAP reform negotiations as we move to 2027 and post the current CAP. We need to prioritise the simplification of the CAP. There are simply too many schemes. They are too cumbersome and it takes too much time for individual farmers to get access to the grants available through the CAP at the moment. I regularly see measures or initiatives introduced as part of the CAP to incentivise the production of a crop that currently is not being produced across the EU. That inevitably leads to more people applying to access the measure and unfortunately, because of the associated bureaucracy, it acts as a disincentive. In the first year of the measures we might see a large uptake of farmers producing that crop but, unfortunately, we repeatedly see farmers backing away in year two and year three simply because the form-filling and processes to access the money are too cumbersome.

I ask the Minister of State to take those points on board. In his brief he has a very challenging role in engaging across the EU with many stakeholders. There was a point raised earlier about national sovereignty. We are here in this Chamber to make these points directly to the Minister of State who will take them up with the Taoiseach and Tánaiste for us and in Europe.