Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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78. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the measures he is taking to ensure that farmers have access to livestock marts to ensure food production supply chains are secured; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33533/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Since the beginning of the Covid19 crisis, my Department has worked intensively, in cooperation with marts representative organisations, to ensure that marts may remain in operation. I would like to commend the representative organisations for this good and necessary cooperation. I would like to commend also the marts themselves, and farmers around the country, for the resilience they have shown in the face of this pandemic, and the speed with which they have adapted to the new circumstances.

My Department has adapted the conditions under which marts must operate since April, to reflect the various measures introduced by the Government to stop the spread of Covid19, and to allow marts to continue to operate.

From April to June 8^th, marts operated without public attendance at sales rings, with marts able to operate transactions online or facilitate the brokering of sales, including the weighing and viewing of stock and the safe processing of financial transactions for buyers and sellers. From June, as other public health restrictions lifted, public attendance at sales rings was again permitted in marts subject to strict compliance with Covid19-specific standard operating procedures in each mart, based on the HSE Covid19 rules.

On 19^thOctober, the Taoiseach announced that the whole country would move to Level 5 of the Framework for Living with Covid19 for a period of 6 weeks, starting midnight on Wednesday, the 21^st.

Protecting the agri-food sector and people in rural communities is at the centre of my Department’s direction, on 20^thOctober, that sales rings must close and that all marts may conduct sales by brokering transactions or by using online platforms only.

From a position where few marts had online systems in place in April, there has been a rapid take up of the new systems by marts over recent months. Currently the vast majority of marts have online systems in place and are operating through online platforms. Some remaining marts are in the process of installing online systems. Thousands of cattle and sheep have been bought and sold successfully using the various online platforms.

Online sales are reaching a much higher number of farmers, dealers, and agents than sales on marts premises did, even prior to the start of Covid restrictions. The number of people logging in to onlien mart sales on a daily basis are many multiples of the number of people that typically attend a mart in person. The majority of marts are reporting good clearance rates and robust prices.

Since the introduction of Level 5, during the first five days on which marts were in operation using online sales, the cattle throughput in marts came to 36,034 head – this compares to 42,918 head in the corresponding five day period in 2019. This means that, despite the undoubted disruption caused by moving to Level 5, mart throughput of cattle was 84% of the figures for that period in 2019. This demonstrates that marts have been able to continue to operate and farmers have been able to continue to buy and sell, thanks to the commitment and resourcefulness of the marts and service providers involved. Buyers may still view animals in person by prior appointment with the relevant mart.

These figures are testament to the hard work and commitment of marts to keep operating in this difficult period. My Department will continue to monitor the situation, and to adapt measures applied to marts in line with public health guidelines.