AGRICULTURE/FOOD/FISHING
Each speech listed here is an edited speech. If you'd like to see the speech or debate in full, please go to the Oireachtas website and click on "Seanad Eireann" and then "Seanad Debates" and click on the relevant date as listed with each speech on this page.
Food Prices (29/06/10)
Common Agricultural Policy (12/05/10)
Report on European Union Scrutiny – Food Labelling, Traceability etc. (03/02/09)
Irish Fishing Quotas (18/12/08)
Pork Crisis (09/12/08)
Irish Agriculture (12/11/08)
Budget Measures – Farming and the West (30/10/08)
Fishing Industry (05/06/08)
WTO Negotiations (21/05/08)
Farmers' Markets (06/12/07)
Food Safety (08/11/07)
Brazilian Beef Imports (17/10/07)
Mutton (03/10/07)
Bogland Fires (14/06/06)
European Regulations Affecting Butchers (27/04/06)
Sea-Fisheries and Maritime-Jurisdiction Bill 2005 (02/03/2006)
Greencore (09/02/06)
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Food Prices
29/06/10 - This has been the most difficult year imaginable for the economy. ….. families have never found it more difficult to survive and to fight their way through the recession. I am quite appalled by the EUROSTAT food price survey which was released yesterday. It found that at a time when Irish farmers are getting 20 cent a litre for their milk, the lowest price for 40 years, Irish consumers, people buying food and dairy products, eggs, cheese and milk in supermarkets, were being charged the second highest prices in Europe. This is an inconsistency which is utterly unacceptable. For all those people who are quick enough to talk about the private and public sectors and inefficiencies in one or the other, this is a clear sign that market forces do not work on behalf of the consumer in all cases.
…. I do not wish us back in a command economy but if price control is the only way we can get fairness into ordinary trading of food products for ordinary families who are being hit from every side, then it is time we considered taking such action. We cannot countenance a situation to continue where our farmers are being paid the lowest prices in 40 years and our consumers such as housewives and shoppers buying those same products in supermarkets, are being charged the second highest prices or the highest prices in Europe. It is completely unacceptable.
…. The farming community and the consumers should at least recognise where we stand on this and allow people to go on the record. If it means we have to do things that we did not do before or have not done for a long time, such as introducing price control, then that is what we need to do.
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Common Agricultural Policy
12/05/10 - ….. We must say to the farmers of Ireland that there is a growing market for food in the world and, therefore, the prospects, if properly handled, directed and regulated, are optimistic. However, it is hard to convince farmers of that because they have not got a very good deal in recent years. ….. One of the great problems with the Common Agricultural Policy was that it turned on its head centuries old activities, directions and objectives of agriculture. For the first time, we started to pay people not to produce and to compensate people to do the reverse of what they learned over many years. …. At least we have moved away from that, which is very important.
What we are discussing is crucial in terms of rural development. The money which goes to farmers is the life blood of much of rural Ireland ….. I completely support the views of the IFA in terms of focusing on sustainable agriculture, sustainable farms and on attractive lifestyles in order that young farmers and new farmers are attracted to and remain in the industry. That is hugely important.
I refer to the question of sustainable food. ….. we are missing out on practical things. …... Anybody who has ever travelled through France will know what a vast agricultural country it is with its dairy-related industry in the north, a huge cereal growing area in the middle and a wine industry in the south. When I walk into a market in France…. I see shiny and beautiful vegetables on display in French supermarkets, farm markets and street markets which would not be allowed in the door of the Dublin market because they would not fit through the sorter. This happens all the time. We are shooting ourselves in the foot. The French take the correct approach. When French people buy vegetables they do not necessarily seek out seven tomatoes of the same size and shape. They know what they are looking for and instinctively buy what looks good and healthy, which we do not do.
…. if nothing else was done in agriculture during this term, the single most important change would be the repeal of the Abattoirs Act. …… This legislation has wrecked the beef industry in small towns all over Ireland. When the Minister and I were young, our mothers or grandmothers would send us to the local butcher to buy a piece of meat for the Sunday roast. The butcher would ask us to tell our mother that the meat came from a farm down the road owned by Brendan Smith who bought the calf from John Carty. ….. We need to return to those times, albeit not by dropping hygiene or cleanliness standards in abattoirs. If a farmer brings an animal to an abattoir for slaughter, it is pot luck whether the meat returned to him will belong to his animal. …. The Minister should consider the possibility of having State owned abattoirs established in provincial towns to enable local butchers or farmers to rent a chiller and slaughterhouse for a couple of hours a few times each month or week to do their business as they once did.
…. Food items purchased in supermarkets are labelled with what is known as a “best before” date. I ask the Minister to acknowledge that the use of these dates is a load of nonsense. When the Minister and I were young if one wanted to know whether milk was drinkable, one stuck one’s nose into the jug and one knew quickly enough if one could drink it. One did not have to look for a date printed on the bottom of the packaging. ….. I do not object to “use before” dates, which are completely different, but to best before dates, the reason being that they cause people to throw out and replace perfectly good food, a significant problem which costs money. ….. supermarkets are also required to remove such products from their shelves. This means the farmer or local stockist is not paid because his product has not been sold. It is completely wrong that the farmer or first producer is forced to pay for this practice.
This brings me to the issue of traceability. When I am buying chicken I want to know where it was reared. French supermarkets have adopted a simple approach by placing on all chicken products a label with the words “élevé a”, as in “reared in” or “bred in”, followed by a location. I want a similar system introduced here. Why does the Minister not simply decide to do so? When his officials tell him how difficult it would be to introduce such a system he should tell them they should sort out the difficulties by the following Monday.
….. we no longer do certain things in this country. For example, it is virtually impossible to find mutton nowadays. One must fight with a butcher to get mutton to make Irish stew. To describe a one year old lamb as mutton is a marketing ploy. If I walk into a house where mutton is being cooked, I will know from its distinctive smell that it is mutton. It tastes and smells different from lamb. … The Minister referred to competitiveness and diversification. I ask him to do me the favour of studying a highly technical area of diversification until he fully understands it. Why are farmers who wish to build wind generation facilities on their farms not being paid a decent price for placing spare electricity in the grid? Why is this electricity not counted towards carbon credits? This issue must be examined and farmers encouraged to engage in this area.
We should support the IFA which is well meaning. There is nothing wrong with being a self-interest group because we have to have people who will look after farmers’ interests. The IFA has its own proposals to make on sustainable food production, maintaining young farmers in the industry, rural development and so on, all of which are of crucial importance to Irish society. …. I compliment the Minister on the work that he and his officials are doing. It is difficult work and there is not great support for agricultural policy in many of the industrialised countries in Europe which must learn that they must eat, as well as make money. Their long-term prospects are best protected by supporting the Common Agricultural Policy that is in place for the benefit of everybody. Ireland can play a huge role in becoming part of the food basket of Europe. That should be our objective.
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Report on European Union Scrutiny – Food Labelling, Traceability etc.
03/02/09 - I was the only person in Leinster House who opposed aspects of the Abattoirs Act. I said it would destroy local butcher’s shops, and it did. They are coming back again, but it sickens me to walk into a butcher’s shop and see a butcher taking meat out a plastic wrapping, something we never saw before 1991. It has made traceability even more impossible because before that one always bought one’s meat locally, it grew on the grass locally and one went only to butchers who could provide that. Recently I was in a Chinese restaurant in Portumna and was delighted to see on every page of the menu that all the meat was locally sourced, with names of the suppliers available at the desk. That is very important.
I have real difficulty with the Minister of State’s argumentation on the question of national schemes of labelling. There is a tiny town in the middle of England, just off the A1 near Grantham. …. It is called Melton Mowbray, which is famous the world over for pork pies. Melton Mowbray pork pies are like Dover sole or Dublin Bay prawns. It is a brand. However, pork pies were being made and sold by Tesco and by all the big distributors as Melton Mowbray pork pies, even though they never saw Melton Mowbray. The people of this small town got together and took a case to Europe. They made the case that the pie was special. They won the case in Europe and now the Melton Mowbray name can be used only by agreement with them.
I mentioned Dover sole and Dublin Bay prawns a while ago, and I might add Limerick ham to that. They are three examples of brands that have been lost to a particular area. … Limerick ham has nothing to do with Limerick, Dublin Bay prawns have nothing whatever to do with Dublin Bay any more, and Dover sole has now been redefined as any sole more than 16 oz. in weight. We should try to get back Limerick ham and Dublin Bay prawns, along with foods such as drisheen and other black puddings from various areas of Ireland, the Kerry mutton pie, and queenie scallops, which I have never seen anywhere except around the Irish Sea. These are foods we should be protecting, but it is not happening.
This week country-of-origin labelling legislation came into operation in the USA. Why was this done? The argument is that a particular food could have been raised in South America, but somebody washes it in the USA and it is then branded as having come from the USA. One of the big closures last month, after Waterford Crystal and Dell, was a turkey factory in Monaghan. This was painted as another victim of the recession. However, it was no victim of the recession but a victim of the lack of country-of-origin labelling. It was put to the sword by cheaper imported meat. The difficulty is that these pieces of turkey or other meat are coming from countries where food safety legislation does not match our own, water quality is not up to our standards, labour standards are unacceptable from the point of view of Irish agreements, pesticides are not controlled, and growth promoters are still being used. We should be doing something about this. If the Minister of State did nothing else, he should foster a sense of pride in our own food. We should be able to say that something came from Listowel or Balbriggan or Castlebar or anywhere else and it is ours. People locally should get together to do that.
I spoke to a butcher in the midlands last year about this. His butcher’s shop was adjoining a well-known hotel. I asked him whether he got much business from the hotel. It turned out he was doing fine business with the hotel, because he had the best meat. However, it then transpired that the food officers discovered he was supplying the hotel and clamped down. Why? It was very simple and logical, but totally daft. He was selling it to the hotel, and the hotel was selling it on to you and me when we came in as customers, which made him a wholesaler. Thus, he no longer had to comply with the regulations pertaining to retail sales but with the regulations for wholesalers. He had to comply with the regulations applying to big wholesalers, even though all he was doing was supplying the hotel next door.
I am disappointed the Minister of State did not say something about those appalling stamps called “best before”. They should be banned. They are an absolute disgrace. They cause war in my house, because somebody sees that the best before date on a product is two days ago or a month ago and they throw it out because they think it has something to do with health. We need to be told that the best before date is an invention of the manufacturers. The “use by” date is a different thing, which indicates that a product would be dangerous to use after a certain date. I would prefer to hear only if a product would be dangerous if used after a certain date. Best before dates are a marketing ploy which result in much wastage of food and money. Food is dumped out of supermarkets and taken off shelves unnecessarily on a Friday or Saturday evening. The only people who gain are some charitable organisations that hand out food.
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Irish Fishing Quotas
18/12/08 - On another related matter, both Senator O’Donovan and I have raised in the House on a number of occasions the problems of the Irish fishing industry. I have bemoaned the fact that the industry along the west coast has been destroyed. Incredibly it is now the case that France and Spain are seeking to reduce the current Irish fishing quota so that our quota can be transferred to theirs. It is difficult to believe in this day and age that they could seriously put forward the idea that the very low quota available to Irish fishermen would now be reduced further. They are doing this on the basis that the Irish fleet has been reduced and that therefore the quota may not be needed. However, the reason given for the reduction in the fleet was that the remaining boats would at least have a better share. .. I ask the Leader, through the Cathaoirleach, to send a message that this House recognises the difficulties encountered by the fishing industry and to exhort the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food not to give one inch on this issue and that he should say this before he even gets on the plane to Brussels.
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Pork Crisis
09/12/08 - We should be discussing the matter today. The House will be aware that I have been saying for more than ten years that we would some day regret not reforming and repealing the Abattoirs Act 1988, which effectively has made it impossible to trace meat in many cases, and departing from the practice of the time when a local butcher killed his own in his own slaughterhouse, and we would never get back to that.
I had a couple of slices of butchers’ rashers for breakfast on Sunday morning, but I funked it. I left them until Monday and threw them on the pan yesterday. If I fall down in front of you, a Chathaoirligh, you will know what the problem is…. It would be important to recognise that this would be a useful opportunity for Europe to buy back the agricultural vote by putting a few shillings into the pot to deal with this issue, but that is one of the issues at which we can look in terms of a debate.
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Irish Agriculture
12/11/08 - There is no hope in this. I had intended to speak at some length on installation aid, early retirement and the other related issues addressed by the proposer and the seconder, but the Minister of State raised some issues in his speech to which I want to return. They are absolutely contradictory, do not sit with the position coming from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and raise major questions for me.
Following the announcement of the budget I met some of the farmers’ groups. What they have faced is appalling. They are the quieter victims of the budget. … farmers have taken a reduction in income. The amount they have been getting for their commodities over the past ten to 15 years has been reducing. … the provisions in the budget will make it more difficult for farmers to get a sustainable livelihood from their lands. The reduction in the disadvantaged areas scheme from 45 ha to 34 ha was particularly difficult. That is absolutely unfair given that we are talking about places such as boglands and the sides of hills. … I believe farmers individually will take an average income reduction of approximately 11%. … In addition, like everybody else, they will also be hit by the levy, which is fine for those earning a decent income.
The Minister of State also stated forestry will play a major role in combating climate change. The Minister of State’s Department has indicated the Government had previously proposed that total land use would be taken into consideration in dealing with agricultural emissions but this is not being allowed. The forestry element will not be taken into consideration. That is what we have been told on the climate change committee by the Department. We questioned the representatives from the Department and got a very clear and fair presentation, but it is at odds with what the Minister of State told us this morning. Alternatively, we are not being told all of what we need to hear tonight.
.. the world demand for beef, for example, will double. Arising from Europe’s direction, we must reduce the emissions from agriculture here, which means herds must be reduced. Therefore we will not be able to supply the demand for beef in Europe from Europe. I am not making this up as I go along; these are incontrovertible facts. Irish farmers will see a growing market but will be unable to participate. They will not even be able to hold their own position in the market. The gap will be filled by Argentinian and Brazilian beef coming to Ireland at the cost of the rain-forests in South America, food miles and inefficient farming habits in South America. That is the future being faced by Irish farmers currently.
As well as being hit by the budget, these farmers are not even being told what is coming down the line. They face eradication and need a champion. The hits taken in the budget should and must be reversed, although this would only be a stepping stone. …. I know the Minister has indicated he cannot see how we can meet the 20% reduction in emissions. He is 100% correct, as it cannot be done if we are to take advantage of the demand for dairy products and beef.… When the commodities market is finally coming right after 20 years going the wrong way for the Irish farmer and agriculture industry, they will not be there to take advantage of it. They will be halving their herds and shooting the cows.
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Budget Measures – Farming and the West
30/10/08 - In particular, I wish to focus on the impact of the budget on farming and the west. I raised many times in the House the difficulties relating to fishing and infrastructure in the west. I have raised many issues, such as Valentia and otherwise. I am coming to the conclusion that the Government does not care a whit for the west of Ireland and that it considers we would be better to cut it off at the Shannon and allow it to drift out to sea.
The impact of the budget on small farmers, sheep farmers and people in disadvantaged areas is utterly disproportionate. That is the problem with this budget. While everyone is aware that cuts must be made, in each sector they are being made on those who are most vulnerable. A debate on agriculture should take place and I will make a significant contribution on the subject of disadvantaged farmers in regions, who are utterly dismayed by what has been done to them.
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Fishing Industry
05/06/08 - I have often raised the difficulties of the fishing industry. I know it is not a very popular issue and that people do not get excited about it as they do with other issues in the eastern part of the country. We sold out the fishermen with the first national economic programme in the 1950s, we continued to sell them out in the negotiations prior to joining the EEC in 1972 and we have been trying to fight our way back since then. Last year we unnecessarily stopped drift net fishermen from salmon fishing. There is also an initiative to buy out fishermen. All of the above have caused the death by 1,000 cuts of one of our most traditional industries.
With the increase in the price of diesel and the restricted quotas, boats are tied up because they cannot afford to go out. Even if they catch their maximum quota, the cost of diesel for small trawlers — it could increase to almost €2,000 per week — means it does not pay for the running of the boat. There is something significantly wrong and the Government must intervene. That problem was created prior to us joining EEC. Perhaps we could ask the EU to take us out of the mess into which we got ourselves more than 30 years ago. Owing to the restrictions on the Irish fishing industry, it will die before our eyes if we do not get help from somewhere. I ask people to show support for the fishing industry.
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WTO Negotiations
21/05/08 - I ask the Minister to be careful with regard to the WTO. Prior to going any further with this, will the Minister look back at what happened in Irish agriculture in the 1990s? Irish farmers were misled by their elected leaders and every political party to believe that in some way Irish beef prices would be different from global prices. We had this debate during the 1990s when farmers had a go at every Commissioner for Agriculture. I got tired of defending Commissioners for Agriculture and Ministers with responsibility for agriculture, including Ivan Yates, Ray MacSharry and various other people, who were doing their best.
… We need to consider the Treaty of Rome writ large. The only reason we have WTO talks is that we dumped on the Third World and the developing world and we did not allow world farming to develop. Reference was made already to the fact that after millennia of encouraging farmers and farming to increase production, to refine production methods and to become more efficient, we came up with set-aside, food mountains and producing food we do not need. The Minister has responsibility with regard to world food prices and world hunger and we need to consider these in global negotiations.
If the Minister could arrange tomorrow morning for the Treaty of Rome — in other words free movement of trade, goods and labour — to be in force throughout the world we would not be having this conversation because everything would sort itself out very quickly. However, western countries can dump food with export subsidies to cheap and poor countries in Africa. This would be fine if the workers in those countries could go to the United States or to Europe and earn money at the same level. We would finally have an equation. Eventually, this will happen and we will have a levelling off. The WTO is about how we guide this and have fairness while protecting our industry.
This issue is not about the WTO or the European veto. It is about a fundamental point, namely, the income farmers receive. It is appalling. As a trade unionist, I am appalled at the level of income on which colleagues in the farming industry must live.
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Farmers' Markets
06/12/07 - I was in this House when the Abattoirs Act was passed. I believed then and still believe it was the most regressive measure on food safety introduced in my time. Something that was intended to protect our food got rid of traceability. Traceability became an issue only when we eliminated the local abattoirs. I said at the time we should have insisted on certain standards in local abattoirs. However, we chose to introduce a state of the art set of regulations for which only wholesalers could qualify thus putting the small butcher in a local town out of the market. It is an important issue and should be revisited.
There is a quality issue relating to farmers’ markets. My mother used to sell fruit and vegetables, among other things. I could walk into the house blindfold the day that the Irish tomatoes came on the market at the start of the new season. An Irish tomato can be eaten like an apple, both for the smell of it which is gorgeous, the taste of it which is gorgeous and the colour which is gorgeous. Many chefs in Ireland use tinned tomato for the simple reason they cannot get the desired quality in the tomatoes bought in a shop.
I happen to live in the Minister of State’s constituency and we in north Dublin can live off the vegetables that fall through the sorting machines of the local vegetable producers. These are perfectly good cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes which do not meet the size and shape requirements dictated by some boffin in Brussels as being proper for our needs. It is madness that perfectly good, tasty fruit is being dumped because it does not conform to a sorting process and this should be investigated.
I know that the issue of food miles is close to the Minister of State’s heart. One of the problems is that much of the food we grew up with and loved is no longer available because it does not travel well. I will cite an example. Anybody of my age … will remember that the main apple was Beauty of Bath. It was a lovely striped apple with red and yellow running through it and a bit of red visible when it was bitten into. The problem is the Beauty of Bath apple does not travel well; any contact and it bruises. It is not commercial and therefore it is not available to buy and has disappeared from the market. However, it could be sold in local markets as local produce.
Local delicacies have been lost over time. The Listowel fair sells what is generally called in Listowel and north Kerry a Kerry pie but it should correctly be called a Dingle pie. This is a mutton pie which is made locally and is a delicacy. Abraimis faoin sliogán dubh, big hard mussels, which are a delicacy in many parts of County Donegal. They could be available as a local delicacy, such as tripe in other parts of the country. There is not an area in Ireland that does not have a local dish and their sale in farmers’ markets would make them known and understood by people.
The Minister of State will pass what used to be the North Dublin Farmers Co-op on his way here every morning. If he did nothing else in his tenure as Minister of State than to convince farmers of the advantages of belonging to a co-operative and looking after themselves and perhaps taking a lower price in order to facilitate local buying and selling, it would be a good achievement as farmers’ co-operatives need a boost.
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Food Safety
08/11/07 - I remind the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, of an issue on which he and I were slightly culpable as Members of this House in the late 1980s, namely, the passing of the Abattoirs Act 1988, which was the biggest legislative mistake we have made for many years on food issues. Like many Members, I grew up in a town where, when one ordered meat from the local butcher, it most likely came from his own or a neighbour’s farm and traceability was a very simple issue. Now, even the best organised butcher’s shop might have difficulty telling a customer from where the meat it is selling came because it is buying from a central abattoir in vacuum-packed trays. We are spending billions to improve traceability although it was not an issue in the past. As the question of the provenance of food is so important, we must examine this issue.
I agree with a point made by Senator O’Sullivan. I recently went to what is probably the best food shop in Dublin at present, Fallon and Byrne in Wicklow Street. It had a fantastic selection of mushrooms, such as chantelles and many other types one does not see in shops any longer. We have destroyed the taste of mushrooms. There is no comparison between the taste of wild mushrooms, which people picked and put on the fire with a knob of butter, and the tasteless stuff that comes from dark, covered growing areas nowadays. This is because we have not trained growers in the area of taste and related aspects.
I agree with Senator Bradford and the IFA on the issue of Brazilian meat. Irish farmers have made an argument that is convincing to any interested person. I have not heard an answer to this simple question: why, if foot and mouth disease is found in this country, does the whole country close down, whereas if it happens in another country, that country can still export to us? It does not make sense. I do not add to this a criticism of the Minister, Deputy Coughlan. As Senator O’Sullivan noted, she has made every attempt to move Europe’s position on this issue. The Government should state clearly that this is wrong. If necessary, we should pass legislation to protect our farmers.
An area related to food safety in which Ireland is badly lacking is how we develop new products in a safe way. …. not long ago air-dried venison from Donegal was available in good food shops in Senator Keaveney’s constituency. It was a beautiful product, pure black, well presented and very unusual, yet the company producing it has gone out of business. This country does not produce air-dried bacon, venison or beef. We import Serrano ham and we pay big money for it. We could produce this ourselves.
I live, at the moment, in north County Dublin, which used to be the centre of the Irish vegetable industry. People go to France and to continental Europe and take photographs of vegetable displays. They want to know why we cannot have these lovely shiny large vegetables in Ireland. The answer is very simple. We apply the regulations here and that is not done in any other European country. I can walk into a food market in Provence in France and see cucumbers, root vegetables, tomatoes in particular, which would not get through the sorting system to get into the Dublin vegetable market. They would be dumped here. More good food is dumped here than is sold in other countries. We need to examine the regulation.
Other issues are the regulations relating to cottage industry, farmers’ markets and farmer outlets. Does the Minister of State know that there are farmers doing quite well selling vegetables to local people at the farm gate but they cannot include in the sale anything which has not been grown on the farm? One can buy a variety of vegetables but one might also want to buy ginger which would not have been grown on the farm and, because of ridiculous legislation, farmers are not allowed to sell that.
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Brazilian Beef Imports
17/10/07 - Last week I entertained some Members with my comments on food quality. I want to give them another laugh today. This is a serious issue and I call again for a debate on the matter. I met the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food with responsibility for food and horticulture, Deputy Sargent, who was enthusiastic to debate the matter in the House. Apart from the issue of mutton which I raised last week, I want to know where we stand on Brazilian beef imports. The farmers are right on this one and I want a debate on it.
I want a debate on pesticides and chemicals used in vegetable cultivation. The country has a large mushroom industry with hundreds of thousands of tonnes sold domestically and exported every year. However, the number of mushrooms tested annually to ensure quality assurance is a meagre ten. In the case of leeks, one solitary specimen is tested for quality assurance. To some this may seem unimportant but we are what we eat. As we want to be the granary and garden of Europe, it is necessary for a debate on the quality assurance of our foodstuffs.
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Mutton
03/10/07 - It (mutton) represents a traditional flavour of Ireland and was the basic ingredient for Irish stew. At a time when slow cooking is a fast-expanding area of cuisine, it is time that mutton be made available again in Ireland. This would provide a new outlet and market for the Irish farmer. This is exactly what the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has been advocating and it represents a significant issue. …. I would like the Minister of State with responsibility for food, Deputy Sargent, to come to the House to offer Senators his views on this matter. We need to educate ourselves, if nobody else, on the value and attraction of mutton.
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Bogland Fires
14/06/06 - I wish to raise an issue concerning the Leader’s own constituency. I can assure the House that had a bog fire taken place in County Wicklow, it would have taken over the national media for the past week. A serious and risky event occurred in County Longford last week, namely, a bog fire which ran riot for a number of days. It was extremely serious and necessitated the movement of livestock. Moreover, people were obliged to move from their houses, property was damaged and trees were cut to create firebreaks. I seek reassurances that this cannot happen again, as lives could be at risk.
Apparently, other locations handle such outbreaks better. My understanding is that in places such as Laois and Offaly, a fireman is assigned to each bog to ensure that bog fires are treated and dealt with an early stage. However, the problem in the Longford area was caused by cutbacks, which meant that a similar approach was not taken and no defence mechanisms were in place. This is one of those issues in rural Ireland which is simply ignored by the establishment. It is a serious issue which could cost lives in future. I seek reassurances that it cannot happen anywhere in the boglands, which extend throughout the midlands.
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European Regulations Affecting Butchers
27/04/06 - On several occasions over the years I have heard the Leader talk about the difficulties created for the development of home industry which is destroyed by an overly strict interpretation of European regulations.
We are now about to do the same again. European regulation 854/2004 will create havoc for small supermarkets and butchers. Whereas throughout our lives we have seen local butcher shops provide steak and meat to local hotels, we now have a situation where the regulation will require the butchers to register as wholesalers as opposed to retailers. This will result in a whole new set of regulations, thereby doubling up on the regulations with which retailers must currently comply. The regulation will also require veterinary and health officers to examine each business to ensure the butchers are within the regulations. This will create havoc around the country.
The interpretation the Government is taking has not been taken in other countries, particularly not in the UK. I do not want to go into the details but will give a simple example of the outcome. Around the Border areas butchers will be in competition with their colleagues. On this side of the Border, butchers who sell more than 500 kg of meat over a certain period to a local hotel or business will have to register as wholesalers putting them in competition with people from the other side of the Border who can sell up to 2,000 kg.
This regulation means we are going to over-regulate once again, put small industries out of business unnecessarily and create hardship and difficulty. This is a matter for the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children and I want her to come to the House to discuss it. The Tánaiste has shown herself to be practical on issues such as this and I do not believe she would want the regulation to go ahead. I understand she has been pushed into it by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, but we should review it and ensure that Irish butchers and meat outlets are not under a more difficult regime or regulations than their colleagues in the UK. We should adopt the same approach throughout the island in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement. We should ask the Tánaiste to address the issue.
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Sea-Fisheries and Maritime-Jurisdiction Bill 2005
02/03/2006 - I put my hands up and state I come from a biased position. I remember in the nights of my youth watching families of fishermen stand along the quay wall in Dingle wondering whether they would return. I remember major drowning incidents occurring every couple of years.
Something has gone wrong and I want to go back to the root from where all this came. I was in Dingle last August and I spoke to a friend who was in my class in school. He owns a boat which was tied up. The Minister knows why it was tied up, which was to do with the quota. As we were there, two big Spanish trawlers came in to land a catch. One would want to see and feel the way it affected the fishermen to whom I was speaking. They were not able to fish while the Spanish trawlers were able to come in with large quotas.
Two weeks later I was standing in the fishing village of Port-Vendres in France, approximately 10 km north of the Spanish border. I was trying to speak with two French fishermen who had two large half-deckers. We could see a large fishing boat in the harbour. I tried to ask some questions about it and the French man shook his hands and stated it was Spanish. It was exactly the same in France as I had seen a week earlier in Dingle. Huge Spanish trawlers come in and scoop up everything while the local fishing industry is destroyed.
When I was going to school there were approximately four times more local boats in Dingle than there are now. That is the reality. Why does it happen? We have a duty to understand the culture of these people. I want to put it in that frame rather than go through the detail.
I disagree fundamentally with the point debated over and back about the constitutionality of administrative sanctions. The Minister made reference to it in his speech. I will point to other matters in our legislation, such as the way a doctor, lawyer or teacher can be struck off and penalised professionally and the way in which members of the accountancy profession can be penalised and fined by their profession without going to court. This is because it is done by a domestic remedy or process which has a legislative base and which in some cases has an appeal access to the courts. This should have been dealt with in that way.
The Dublin attitude to fishing is rightly based on book learning. I must query some of the statistics I see, for example this year’s mackerel quotas. Fishermen on the west coast told me there was an extraordinary run of mackerel from Scotland down to the Blaskets. Why can we not have up-to-date figures? Can the Minister rely on the figures he receives? Either they are not factually based or people are dreaming. We must examine this issue. In terms of Ireland’s background and coastline the quotas are destroying us. We must take action on this and give space to fishermen.
Part of the problem is that fishermen are not sufficiently involved in the decisions. In other countries the fishermen are involved in the policing of salmon stocks, regulation and the fishing period. Although regulation and restriction is required, stopping fishermen at sea from netting salmon is not necessarily the way to deal with the salmon issue. In Canada a certain number of salmon are required up-river to replenish stocks and feed wildlife. Rather than having quotas, which are cumbersome and difficult to police, or dates which are taken out of the air, people may not fish for salmon until the agreed stock level is reached. Why could we not trust the fishermen and do that here?
Action must be taken on small rivers all over the country. We should ask the fishermen how this can be done with a certain level of administrative penalisation and summary conviction as in the legislation for those guilty of serious crime. The examples the Minister gave on the airwaves were criminal acts. I have no problem with doing what must be done to deal with those people. If we put the word “serious” before “crime” we have serious crime producing serious criminals. I agree with the Minister on that but we must help the smaller operators and those working day to day and week to week for a living.
While aspects of fish farming may not appeal to people from Dublin 4, it is a real opportunity and must be progressed. There are developments in places, such as Oileán Cléire, and fish farming for species such as turbot is being researched. There is a future there as well that needs to be looked at. Senator Kenneally and I were talking about the buying out of licences issue, which I find extremely sad. I do not want to see the industry die. I want to know how we can make it work. There is a certain block in this regard, however. I am upset by what is happening to fishermen. I do not deny the Minister is well motivated, but I believe the projected outcome is wrong. Can we find the right balance? I believe we have missed it.
This is a difficult ministerial brief. People must accept that the Minister is doing what he believes to be right in this. I ask him to soften his approach, as well, to see how we may ensure that people working in fisheries as well as the industry itself are protected. We also need to look at what may be put in place to help them. Proactive steps are needed to put additional opportunities in place. Can we do that? How can we make it work? Numerous people cannot get through the bureaucracy.
I believe the industry is getting the wrong end of the stick from this piece of legislation. I appeal to him to soften his view on it and to approach it from three levels rather than two. Another step is needed, however — the introduction of an administrative process that has a legislative base and which facilitates access to the courts by either side, if that did not work out. I believe this is possible and there is parallel legislation in place to facilitate such an initiative. I ask the Minister to consider it.
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Greencore
09/02/06 - Today Greencore is holding its AGM at which it will announce massive profits and a bright future, and that it does not care that much about beet because it is mainly a British company dealing in snack and convenience foods. While it is looking at that bright future, beet farmers and the workers in Mallow have no future at all. To add insult to injury, to wish Greencore well on its way after leaving chaos behind it, we are giving it over €100 million. That is appalling and should be debated in the House. It is unfair on farmers, workers, the community and European taxpayers. That is not how we want our money spent and it gives a bad impression of the European project.
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Seanad debates are available in full on the Oireachtas website
Each speech listed here is an edited speech. If you'd like to see the speech or debate in full, please go to the Oireachtas website and click on "Seanad Eireann" and then "Seanad Debates" and click on the relevant date as listed with each speech on this page.
Food Prices (29/06/10)
Common Agricultural Policy (12/05/10)
Report on European Union Scrutiny – Food Labelling, Traceability etc. (03/02/09)
Irish Fishing Quotas (18/12/08)
Pork Crisis (09/12/08)
Irish Agriculture (12/11/08)
Budget Measures – Farming and the West (30/10/08)
Fishing Industry (05/06/08)
WTO Negotiations (21/05/08)
Farmers' Markets (06/12/07)
Food Safety (08/11/07)
Brazilian Beef Imports (17/10/07)
Mutton (03/10/07)
Bogland Fires (14/06/06)
European Regulations Affecting Butchers (27/04/06)
Sea-Fisheries and Maritime-Jurisdiction Bill 2005 (02/03/2006)
Greencore (09/02/06)
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Food Prices
29/06/10 - This has been the most difficult year imaginable for the economy. ….. families have never found it more difficult to survive and to fight their way through the recession. I am quite appalled by the EUROSTAT food price survey which was released yesterday. It found that at a time when Irish farmers are getting 20 cent a litre for their milk, the lowest price for 40 years, Irish consumers, people buying food and dairy products, eggs, cheese and milk in supermarkets, were being charged the second highest prices in Europe. This is an inconsistency which is utterly unacceptable. For all those people who are quick enough to talk about the private and public sectors and inefficiencies in one or the other, this is a clear sign that market forces do not work on behalf of the consumer in all cases.
…. I do not wish us back in a command economy but if price control is the only way we can get fairness into ordinary trading of food products for ordinary families who are being hit from every side, then it is time we considered taking such action. We cannot countenance a situation to continue where our farmers are being paid the lowest prices in 40 years and our consumers such as housewives and shoppers buying those same products in supermarkets, are being charged the second highest prices or the highest prices in Europe. It is completely unacceptable.
…. The farming community and the consumers should at least recognise where we stand on this and allow people to go on the record. If it means we have to do things that we did not do before or have not done for a long time, such as introducing price control, then that is what we need to do.
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Common Agricultural Policy
12/05/10 - ….. We must say to the farmers of Ireland that there is a growing market for food in the world and, therefore, the prospects, if properly handled, directed and regulated, are optimistic. However, it is hard to convince farmers of that because they have not got a very good deal in recent years. ….. One of the great problems with the Common Agricultural Policy was that it turned on its head centuries old activities, directions and objectives of agriculture. For the first time, we started to pay people not to produce and to compensate people to do the reverse of what they learned over many years. …. At least we have moved away from that, which is very important.
What we are discussing is crucial in terms of rural development. The money which goes to farmers is the life blood of much of rural Ireland ….. I completely support the views of the IFA in terms of focusing on sustainable agriculture, sustainable farms and on attractive lifestyles in order that young farmers and new farmers are attracted to and remain in the industry. That is hugely important.
I refer to the question of sustainable food. ….. we are missing out on practical things. …... Anybody who has ever travelled through France will know what a vast agricultural country it is with its dairy-related industry in the north, a huge cereal growing area in the middle and a wine industry in the south. When I walk into a market in France…. I see shiny and beautiful vegetables on display in French supermarkets, farm markets and street markets which would not be allowed in the door of the Dublin market because they would not fit through the sorter. This happens all the time. We are shooting ourselves in the foot. The French take the correct approach. When French people buy vegetables they do not necessarily seek out seven tomatoes of the same size and shape. They know what they are looking for and instinctively buy what looks good and healthy, which we do not do.
…. if nothing else was done in agriculture during this term, the single most important change would be the repeal of the Abattoirs Act. …… This legislation has wrecked the beef industry in small towns all over Ireland. When the Minister and I were young, our mothers or grandmothers would send us to the local butcher to buy a piece of meat for the Sunday roast. The butcher would ask us to tell our mother that the meat came from a farm down the road owned by Brendan Smith who bought the calf from John Carty. ….. We need to return to those times, albeit not by dropping hygiene or cleanliness standards in abattoirs. If a farmer brings an animal to an abattoir for slaughter, it is pot luck whether the meat returned to him will belong to his animal. …. The Minister should consider the possibility of having State owned abattoirs established in provincial towns to enable local butchers or farmers to rent a chiller and slaughterhouse for a couple of hours a few times each month or week to do their business as they once did.
…. Food items purchased in supermarkets are labelled with what is known as a “best before” date. I ask the Minister to acknowledge that the use of these dates is a load of nonsense. When the Minister and I were young if one wanted to know whether milk was drinkable, one stuck one’s nose into the jug and one knew quickly enough if one could drink it. One did not have to look for a date printed on the bottom of the packaging. ….. I do not object to “use before” dates, which are completely different, but to best before dates, the reason being that they cause people to throw out and replace perfectly good food, a significant problem which costs money. ….. supermarkets are also required to remove such products from their shelves. This means the farmer or local stockist is not paid because his product has not been sold. It is completely wrong that the farmer or first producer is forced to pay for this practice.
This brings me to the issue of traceability. When I am buying chicken I want to know where it was reared. French supermarkets have adopted a simple approach by placing on all chicken products a label with the words “élevé a”, as in “reared in” or “bred in”, followed by a location. I want a similar system introduced here. Why does the Minister not simply decide to do so? When his officials tell him how difficult it would be to introduce such a system he should tell them they should sort out the difficulties by the following Monday.
….. we no longer do certain things in this country. For example, it is virtually impossible to find mutton nowadays. One must fight with a butcher to get mutton to make Irish stew. To describe a one year old lamb as mutton is a marketing ploy. If I walk into a house where mutton is being cooked, I will know from its distinctive smell that it is mutton. It tastes and smells different from lamb. … The Minister referred to competitiveness and diversification. I ask him to do me the favour of studying a highly technical area of diversification until he fully understands it. Why are farmers who wish to build wind generation facilities on their farms not being paid a decent price for placing spare electricity in the grid? Why is this electricity not counted towards carbon credits? This issue must be examined and farmers encouraged to engage in this area.
We should support the IFA which is well meaning. There is nothing wrong with being a self-interest group because we have to have people who will look after farmers’ interests. The IFA has its own proposals to make on sustainable food production, maintaining young farmers in the industry, rural development and so on, all of which are of crucial importance to Irish society. …. I compliment the Minister on the work that he and his officials are doing. It is difficult work and there is not great support for agricultural policy in many of the industrialised countries in Europe which must learn that they must eat, as well as make money. Their long-term prospects are best protected by supporting the Common Agricultural Policy that is in place for the benefit of everybody. Ireland can play a huge role in becoming part of the food basket of Europe. That should be our objective.
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Report on European Union Scrutiny – Food Labelling, Traceability etc.
03/02/09 - I was the only person in Leinster House who opposed aspects of the Abattoirs Act. I said it would destroy local butcher’s shops, and it did. They are coming back again, but it sickens me to walk into a butcher’s shop and see a butcher taking meat out a plastic wrapping, something we never saw before 1991. It has made traceability even more impossible because before that one always bought one’s meat locally, it grew on the grass locally and one went only to butchers who could provide that. Recently I was in a Chinese restaurant in Portumna and was delighted to see on every page of the menu that all the meat was locally sourced, with names of the suppliers available at the desk. That is very important.
I have real difficulty with the Minister of State’s argumentation on the question of national schemes of labelling. There is a tiny town in the middle of England, just off the A1 near Grantham. …. It is called Melton Mowbray, which is famous the world over for pork pies. Melton Mowbray pork pies are like Dover sole or Dublin Bay prawns. It is a brand. However, pork pies were being made and sold by Tesco and by all the big distributors as Melton Mowbray pork pies, even though they never saw Melton Mowbray. The people of this small town got together and took a case to Europe. They made the case that the pie was special. They won the case in Europe and now the Melton Mowbray name can be used only by agreement with them.
I mentioned Dover sole and Dublin Bay prawns a while ago, and I might add Limerick ham to that. They are three examples of brands that have been lost to a particular area. … Limerick ham has nothing to do with Limerick, Dublin Bay prawns have nothing whatever to do with Dublin Bay any more, and Dover sole has now been redefined as any sole more than 16 oz. in weight. We should try to get back Limerick ham and Dublin Bay prawns, along with foods such as drisheen and other black puddings from various areas of Ireland, the Kerry mutton pie, and queenie scallops, which I have never seen anywhere except around the Irish Sea. These are foods we should be protecting, but it is not happening.
This week country-of-origin labelling legislation came into operation in the USA. Why was this done? The argument is that a particular food could have been raised in South America, but somebody washes it in the USA and it is then branded as having come from the USA. One of the big closures last month, after Waterford Crystal and Dell, was a turkey factory in Monaghan. This was painted as another victim of the recession. However, it was no victim of the recession but a victim of the lack of country-of-origin labelling. It was put to the sword by cheaper imported meat. The difficulty is that these pieces of turkey or other meat are coming from countries where food safety legislation does not match our own, water quality is not up to our standards, labour standards are unacceptable from the point of view of Irish agreements, pesticides are not controlled, and growth promoters are still being used. We should be doing something about this. If the Minister of State did nothing else, he should foster a sense of pride in our own food. We should be able to say that something came from Listowel or Balbriggan or Castlebar or anywhere else and it is ours. People locally should get together to do that.
I spoke to a butcher in the midlands last year about this. His butcher’s shop was adjoining a well-known hotel. I asked him whether he got much business from the hotel. It turned out he was doing fine business with the hotel, because he had the best meat. However, it then transpired that the food officers discovered he was supplying the hotel and clamped down. Why? It was very simple and logical, but totally daft. He was selling it to the hotel, and the hotel was selling it on to you and me when we came in as customers, which made him a wholesaler. Thus, he no longer had to comply with the regulations pertaining to retail sales but with the regulations for wholesalers. He had to comply with the regulations applying to big wholesalers, even though all he was doing was supplying the hotel next door.
I am disappointed the Minister of State did not say something about those appalling stamps called “best before”. They should be banned. They are an absolute disgrace. They cause war in my house, because somebody sees that the best before date on a product is two days ago or a month ago and they throw it out because they think it has something to do with health. We need to be told that the best before date is an invention of the manufacturers. The “use by” date is a different thing, which indicates that a product would be dangerous to use after a certain date. I would prefer to hear only if a product would be dangerous if used after a certain date. Best before dates are a marketing ploy which result in much wastage of food and money. Food is dumped out of supermarkets and taken off shelves unnecessarily on a Friday or Saturday evening. The only people who gain are some charitable organisations that hand out food.
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Irish Fishing Quotas
18/12/08 - On another related matter, both Senator O’Donovan and I have raised in the House on a number of occasions the problems of the Irish fishing industry. I have bemoaned the fact that the industry along the west coast has been destroyed. Incredibly it is now the case that France and Spain are seeking to reduce the current Irish fishing quota so that our quota can be transferred to theirs. It is difficult to believe in this day and age that they could seriously put forward the idea that the very low quota available to Irish fishermen would now be reduced further. They are doing this on the basis that the Irish fleet has been reduced and that therefore the quota may not be needed. However, the reason given for the reduction in the fleet was that the remaining boats would at least have a better share. .. I ask the Leader, through the Cathaoirleach, to send a message that this House recognises the difficulties encountered by the fishing industry and to exhort the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food not to give one inch on this issue and that he should say this before he even gets on the plane to Brussels.
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Pork Crisis
09/12/08 - We should be discussing the matter today. The House will be aware that I have been saying for more than ten years that we would some day regret not reforming and repealing the Abattoirs Act 1988, which effectively has made it impossible to trace meat in many cases, and departing from the practice of the time when a local butcher killed his own in his own slaughterhouse, and we would never get back to that.
I had a couple of slices of butchers’ rashers for breakfast on Sunday morning, but I funked it. I left them until Monday and threw them on the pan yesterday. If I fall down in front of you, a Chathaoirligh, you will know what the problem is…. It would be important to recognise that this would be a useful opportunity for Europe to buy back the agricultural vote by putting a few shillings into the pot to deal with this issue, but that is one of the issues at which we can look in terms of a debate.
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Irish Agriculture
12/11/08 - There is no hope in this. I had intended to speak at some length on installation aid, early retirement and the other related issues addressed by the proposer and the seconder, but the Minister of State raised some issues in his speech to which I want to return. They are absolutely contradictory, do not sit with the position coming from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and raise major questions for me.
Following the announcement of the budget I met some of the farmers’ groups. What they have faced is appalling. They are the quieter victims of the budget. … farmers have taken a reduction in income. The amount they have been getting for their commodities over the past ten to 15 years has been reducing. … the provisions in the budget will make it more difficult for farmers to get a sustainable livelihood from their lands. The reduction in the disadvantaged areas scheme from 45 ha to 34 ha was particularly difficult. That is absolutely unfair given that we are talking about places such as boglands and the sides of hills. … I believe farmers individually will take an average income reduction of approximately 11%. … In addition, like everybody else, they will also be hit by the levy, which is fine for those earning a decent income.
The Minister of State also stated forestry will play a major role in combating climate change. The Minister of State’s Department has indicated the Government had previously proposed that total land use would be taken into consideration in dealing with agricultural emissions but this is not being allowed. The forestry element will not be taken into consideration. That is what we have been told on the climate change committee by the Department. We questioned the representatives from the Department and got a very clear and fair presentation, but it is at odds with what the Minister of State told us this morning. Alternatively, we are not being told all of what we need to hear tonight.
.. the world demand for beef, for example, will double. Arising from Europe’s direction, we must reduce the emissions from agriculture here, which means herds must be reduced. Therefore we will not be able to supply the demand for beef in Europe from Europe. I am not making this up as I go along; these are incontrovertible facts. Irish farmers will see a growing market but will be unable to participate. They will not even be able to hold their own position in the market. The gap will be filled by Argentinian and Brazilian beef coming to Ireland at the cost of the rain-forests in South America, food miles and inefficient farming habits in South America. That is the future being faced by Irish farmers currently.
As well as being hit by the budget, these farmers are not even being told what is coming down the line. They face eradication and need a champion. The hits taken in the budget should and must be reversed, although this would only be a stepping stone. …. I know the Minister has indicated he cannot see how we can meet the 20% reduction in emissions. He is 100% correct, as it cannot be done if we are to take advantage of the demand for dairy products and beef.… When the commodities market is finally coming right after 20 years going the wrong way for the Irish farmer and agriculture industry, they will not be there to take advantage of it. They will be halving their herds and shooting the cows.
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Budget Measures – Farming and the West
30/10/08 - In particular, I wish to focus on the impact of the budget on farming and the west. I raised many times in the House the difficulties relating to fishing and infrastructure in the west. I have raised many issues, such as Valentia and otherwise. I am coming to the conclusion that the Government does not care a whit for the west of Ireland and that it considers we would be better to cut it off at the Shannon and allow it to drift out to sea.
The impact of the budget on small farmers, sheep farmers and people in disadvantaged areas is utterly disproportionate. That is the problem with this budget. While everyone is aware that cuts must be made, in each sector they are being made on those who are most vulnerable. A debate on agriculture should take place and I will make a significant contribution on the subject of disadvantaged farmers in regions, who are utterly dismayed by what has been done to them.
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Fishing Industry
05/06/08 - I have often raised the difficulties of the fishing industry. I know it is not a very popular issue and that people do not get excited about it as they do with other issues in the eastern part of the country. We sold out the fishermen with the first national economic programme in the 1950s, we continued to sell them out in the negotiations prior to joining the EEC in 1972 and we have been trying to fight our way back since then. Last year we unnecessarily stopped drift net fishermen from salmon fishing. There is also an initiative to buy out fishermen. All of the above have caused the death by 1,000 cuts of one of our most traditional industries.
With the increase in the price of diesel and the restricted quotas, boats are tied up because they cannot afford to go out. Even if they catch their maximum quota, the cost of diesel for small trawlers — it could increase to almost €2,000 per week — means it does not pay for the running of the boat. There is something significantly wrong and the Government must intervene. That problem was created prior to us joining EEC. Perhaps we could ask the EU to take us out of the mess into which we got ourselves more than 30 years ago. Owing to the restrictions on the Irish fishing industry, it will die before our eyes if we do not get help from somewhere. I ask people to show support for the fishing industry.
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WTO Negotiations
21/05/08 - I ask the Minister to be careful with regard to the WTO. Prior to going any further with this, will the Minister look back at what happened in Irish agriculture in the 1990s? Irish farmers were misled by their elected leaders and every political party to believe that in some way Irish beef prices would be different from global prices. We had this debate during the 1990s when farmers had a go at every Commissioner for Agriculture. I got tired of defending Commissioners for Agriculture and Ministers with responsibility for agriculture, including Ivan Yates, Ray MacSharry and various other people, who were doing their best.
… We need to consider the Treaty of Rome writ large. The only reason we have WTO talks is that we dumped on the Third World and the developing world and we did not allow world farming to develop. Reference was made already to the fact that after millennia of encouraging farmers and farming to increase production, to refine production methods and to become more efficient, we came up with set-aside, food mountains and producing food we do not need. The Minister has responsibility with regard to world food prices and world hunger and we need to consider these in global negotiations.
If the Minister could arrange tomorrow morning for the Treaty of Rome — in other words free movement of trade, goods and labour — to be in force throughout the world we would not be having this conversation because everything would sort itself out very quickly. However, western countries can dump food with export subsidies to cheap and poor countries in Africa. This would be fine if the workers in those countries could go to the United States or to Europe and earn money at the same level. We would finally have an equation. Eventually, this will happen and we will have a levelling off. The WTO is about how we guide this and have fairness while protecting our industry.
This issue is not about the WTO or the European veto. It is about a fundamental point, namely, the income farmers receive. It is appalling. As a trade unionist, I am appalled at the level of income on which colleagues in the farming industry must live.
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Farmers' Markets
06/12/07 - I was in this House when the Abattoirs Act was passed. I believed then and still believe it was the most regressive measure on food safety introduced in my time. Something that was intended to protect our food got rid of traceability. Traceability became an issue only when we eliminated the local abattoirs. I said at the time we should have insisted on certain standards in local abattoirs. However, we chose to introduce a state of the art set of regulations for which only wholesalers could qualify thus putting the small butcher in a local town out of the market. It is an important issue and should be revisited.
There is a quality issue relating to farmers’ markets. My mother used to sell fruit and vegetables, among other things. I could walk into the house blindfold the day that the Irish tomatoes came on the market at the start of the new season. An Irish tomato can be eaten like an apple, both for the smell of it which is gorgeous, the taste of it which is gorgeous and the colour which is gorgeous. Many chefs in Ireland use tinned tomato for the simple reason they cannot get the desired quality in the tomatoes bought in a shop.
I happen to live in the Minister of State’s constituency and we in north Dublin can live off the vegetables that fall through the sorting machines of the local vegetable producers. These are perfectly good cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes which do not meet the size and shape requirements dictated by some boffin in Brussels as being proper for our needs. It is madness that perfectly good, tasty fruit is being dumped because it does not conform to a sorting process and this should be investigated.
I know that the issue of food miles is close to the Minister of State’s heart. One of the problems is that much of the food we grew up with and loved is no longer available because it does not travel well. I will cite an example. Anybody of my age … will remember that the main apple was Beauty of Bath. It was a lovely striped apple with red and yellow running through it and a bit of red visible when it was bitten into. The problem is the Beauty of Bath apple does not travel well; any contact and it bruises. It is not commercial and therefore it is not available to buy and has disappeared from the market. However, it could be sold in local markets as local produce.
Local delicacies have been lost over time. The Listowel fair sells what is generally called in Listowel and north Kerry a Kerry pie but it should correctly be called a Dingle pie. This is a mutton pie which is made locally and is a delicacy. Abraimis faoin sliogán dubh, big hard mussels, which are a delicacy in many parts of County Donegal. They could be available as a local delicacy, such as tripe in other parts of the country. There is not an area in Ireland that does not have a local dish and their sale in farmers’ markets would make them known and understood by people.
The Minister of State will pass what used to be the North Dublin Farmers Co-op on his way here every morning. If he did nothing else in his tenure as Minister of State than to convince farmers of the advantages of belonging to a co-operative and looking after themselves and perhaps taking a lower price in order to facilitate local buying and selling, it would be a good achievement as farmers’ co-operatives need a boost.
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Food Safety
08/11/07 - I remind the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, of an issue on which he and I were slightly culpable as Members of this House in the late 1980s, namely, the passing of the Abattoirs Act 1988, which was the biggest legislative mistake we have made for many years on food issues. Like many Members, I grew up in a town where, when one ordered meat from the local butcher, it most likely came from his own or a neighbour’s farm and traceability was a very simple issue. Now, even the best organised butcher’s shop might have difficulty telling a customer from where the meat it is selling came because it is buying from a central abattoir in vacuum-packed trays. We are spending billions to improve traceability although it was not an issue in the past. As the question of the provenance of food is so important, we must examine this issue.
I agree with a point made by Senator O’Sullivan. I recently went to what is probably the best food shop in Dublin at present, Fallon and Byrne in Wicklow Street. It had a fantastic selection of mushrooms, such as chantelles and many other types one does not see in shops any longer. We have destroyed the taste of mushrooms. There is no comparison between the taste of wild mushrooms, which people picked and put on the fire with a knob of butter, and the tasteless stuff that comes from dark, covered growing areas nowadays. This is because we have not trained growers in the area of taste and related aspects.
I agree with Senator Bradford and the IFA on the issue of Brazilian meat. Irish farmers have made an argument that is convincing to any interested person. I have not heard an answer to this simple question: why, if foot and mouth disease is found in this country, does the whole country close down, whereas if it happens in another country, that country can still export to us? It does not make sense. I do not add to this a criticism of the Minister, Deputy Coughlan. As Senator O’Sullivan noted, she has made every attempt to move Europe’s position on this issue. The Government should state clearly that this is wrong. If necessary, we should pass legislation to protect our farmers.
An area related to food safety in which Ireland is badly lacking is how we develop new products in a safe way. …. not long ago air-dried venison from Donegal was available in good food shops in Senator Keaveney’s constituency. It was a beautiful product, pure black, well presented and very unusual, yet the company producing it has gone out of business. This country does not produce air-dried bacon, venison or beef. We import Serrano ham and we pay big money for it. We could produce this ourselves.
I live, at the moment, in north County Dublin, which used to be the centre of the Irish vegetable industry. People go to France and to continental Europe and take photographs of vegetable displays. They want to know why we cannot have these lovely shiny large vegetables in Ireland. The answer is very simple. We apply the regulations here and that is not done in any other European country. I can walk into a food market in Provence in France and see cucumbers, root vegetables, tomatoes in particular, which would not get through the sorting system to get into the Dublin vegetable market. They would be dumped here. More good food is dumped here than is sold in other countries. We need to examine the regulation.
Other issues are the regulations relating to cottage industry, farmers’ markets and farmer outlets. Does the Minister of State know that there are farmers doing quite well selling vegetables to local people at the farm gate but they cannot include in the sale anything which has not been grown on the farm? One can buy a variety of vegetables but one might also want to buy ginger which would not have been grown on the farm and, because of ridiculous legislation, farmers are not allowed to sell that.
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Brazilian Beef Imports
17/10/07 - Last week I entertained some Members with my comments on food quality. I want to give them another laugh today. This is a serious issue and I call again for a debate on the matter. I met the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food with responsibility for food and horticulture, Deputy Sargent, who was enthusiastic to debate the matter in the House. Apart from the issue of mutton which I raised last week, I want to know where we stand on Brazilian beef imports. The farmers are right on this one and I want a debate on it.
I want a debate on pesticides and chemicals used in vegetable cultivation. The country has a large mushroom industry with hundreds of thousands of tonnes sold domestically and exported every year. However, the number of mushrooms tested annually to ensure quality assurance is a meagre ten. In the case of leeks, one solitary specimen is tested for quality assurance. To some this may seem unimportant but we are what we eat. As we want to be the granary and garden of Europe, it is necessary for a debate on the quality assurance of our foodstuffs.
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Mutton
03/10/07 - It (mutton) represents a traditional flavour of Ireland and was the basic ingredient for Irish stew. At a time when slow cooking is a fast-expanding area of cuisine, it is time that mutton be made available again in Ireland. This would provide a new outlet and market for the Irish farmer. This is exactly what the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has been advocating and it represents a significant issue. …. I would like the Minister of State with responsibility for food, Deputy Sargent, to come to the House to offer Senators his views on this matter. We need to educate ourselves, if nobody else, on the value and attraction of mutton.
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Bogland Fires
14/06/06 - I wish to raise an issue concerning the Leader’s own constituency. I can assure the House that had a bog fire taken place in County Wicklow, it would have taken over the national media for the past week. A serious and risky event occurred in County Longford last week, namely, a bog fire which ran riot for a number of days. It was extremely serious and necessitated the movement of livestock. Moreover, people were obliged to move from their houses, property was damaged and trees were cut to create firebreaks. I seek reassurances that this cannot happen again, as lives could be at risk.
Apparently, other locations handle such outbreaks better. My understanding is that in places such as Laois and Offaly, a fireman is assigned to each bog to ensure that bog fires are treated and dealt with an early stage. However, the problem in the Longford area was caused by cutbacks, which meant that a similar approach was not taken and no defence mechanisms were in place. This is one of those issues in rural Ireland which is simply ignored by the establishment. It is a serious issue which could cost lives in future. I seek reassurances that it cannot happen anywhere in the boglands, which extend throughout the midlands.
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European Regulations Affecting Butchers
27/04/06 - On several occasions over the years I have heard the Leader talk about the difficulties created for the development of home industry which is destroyed by an overly strict interpretation of European regulations.
We are now about to do the same again. European regulation 854/2004 will create havoc for small supermarkets and butchers. Whereas throughout our lives we have seen local butcher shops provide steak and meat to local hotels, we now have a situation where the regulation will require the butchers to register as wholesalers as opposed to retailers. This will result in a whole new set of regulations, thereby doubling up on the regulations with which retailers must currently comply. The regulation will also require veterinary and health officers to examine each business to ensure the butchers are within the regulations. This will create havoc around the country.
The interpretation the Government is taking has not been taken in other countries, particularly not in the UK. I do not want to go into the details but will give a simple example of the outcome. Around the Border areas butchers will be in competition with their colleagues. On this side of the Border, butchers who sell more than 500 kg of meat over a certain period to a local hotel or business will have to register as wholesalers putting them in competition with people from the other side of the Border who can sell up to 2,000 kg.
This regulation means we are going to over-regulate once again, put small industries out of business unnecessarily and create hardship and difficulty. This is a matter for the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children and I want her to come to the House to discuss it. The Tánaiste has shown herself to be practical on issues such as this and I do not believe she would want the regulation to go ahead. I understand she has been pushed into it by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, but we should review it and ensure that Irish butchers and meat outlets are not under a more difficult regime or regulations than their colleagues in the UK. We should adopt the same approach throughout the island in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement. We should ask the Tánaiste to address the issue.
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Sea-Fisheries and Maritime-Jurisdiction Bill 2005
02/03/2006 - I put my hands up and state I come from a biased position. I remember in the nights of my youth watching families of fishermen stand along the quay wall in Dingle wondering whether they would return. I remember major drowning incidents occurring every couple of years.
Something has gone wrong and I want to go back to the root from where all this came. I was in Dingle last August and I spoke to a friend who was in my class in school. He owns a boat which was tied up. The Minister knows why it was tied up, which was to do with the quota. As we were there, two big Spanish trawlers came in to land a catch. One would want to see and feel the way it affected the fishermen to whom I was speaking. They were not able to fish while the Spanish trawlers were able to come in with large quotas.
Two weeks later I was standing in the fishing village of Port-Vendres in France, approximately 10 km north of the Spanish border. I was trying to speak with two French fishermen who had two large half-deckers. We could see a large fishing boat in the harbour. I tried to ask some questions about it and the French man shook his hands and stated it was Spanish. It was exactly the same in France as I had seen a week earlier in Dingle. Huge Spanish trawlers come in and scoop up everything while the local fishing industry is destroyed.
When I was going to school there were approximately four times more local boats in Dingle than there are now. That is the reality. Why does it happen? We have a duty to understand the culture of these people. I want to put it in that frame rather than go through the detail.
I disagree fundamentally with the point debated over and back about the constitutionality of administrative sanctions. The Minister made reference to it in his speech. I will point to other matters in our legislation, such as the way a doctor, lawyer or teacher can be struck off and penalised professionally and the way in which members of the accountancy profession can be penalised and fined by their profession without going to court. This is because it is done by a domestic remedy or process which has a legislative base and which in some cases has an appeal access to the courts. This should have been dealt with in that way.
The Dublin attitude to fishing is rightly based on book learning. I must query some of the statistics I see, for example this year’s mackerel quotas. Fishermen on the west coast told me there was an extraordinary run of mackerel from Scotland down to the Blaskets. Why can we not have up-to-date figures? Can the Minister rely on the figures he receives? Either they are not factually based or people are dreaming. We must examine this issue. In terms of Ireland’s background and coastline the quotas are destroying us. We must take action on this and give space to fishermen.
Part of the problem is that fishermen are not sufficiently involved in the decisions. In other countries the fishermen are involved in the policing of salmon stocks, regulation and the fishing period. Although regulation and restriction is required, stopping fishermen at sea from netting salmon is not necessarily the way to deal with the salmon issue. In Canada a certain number of salmon are required up-river to replenish stocks and feed wildlife. Rather than having quotas, which are cumbersome and difficult to police, or dates which are taken out of the air, people may not fish for salmon until the agreed stock level is reached. Why could we not trust the fishermen and do that here?
Action must be taken on small rivers all over the country. We should ask the fishermen how this can be done with a certain level of administrative penalisation and summary conviction as in the legislation for those guilty of serious crime. The examples the Minister gave on the airwaves were criminal acts. I have no problem with doing what must be done to deal with those people. If we put the word “serious” before “crime” we have serious crime producing serious criminals. I agree with the Minister on that but we must help the smaller operators and those working day to day and week to week for a living.
While aspects of fish farming may not appeal to people from Dublin 4, it is a real opportunity and must be progressed. There are developments in places, such as Oileán Cléire, and fish farming for species such as turbot is being researched. There is a future there as well that needs to be looked at. Senator Kenneally and I were talking about the buying out of licences issue, which I find extremely sad. I do not want to see the industry die. I want to know how we can make it work. There is a certain block in this regard, however. I am upset by what is happening to fishermen. I do not deny the Minister is well motivated, but I believe the projected outcome is wrong. Can we find the right balance? I believe we have missed it.
This is a difficult ministerial brief. People must accept that the Minister is doing what he believes to be right in this. I ask him to soften his approach, as well, to see how we may ensure that people working in fisheries as well as the industry itself are protected. We also need to look at what may be put in place to help them. Proactive steps are needed to put additional opportunities in place. Can we do that? How can we make it work? Numerous people cannot get through the bureaucracy.
I believe the industry is getting the wrong end of the stick from this piece of legislation. I appeal to him to soften his view on it and to approach it from three levels rather than two. Another step is needed, however — the introduction of an administrative process that has a legislative base and which facilitates access to the courts by either side, if that did not work out. I believe this is possible and there is parallel legislation in place to facilitate such an initiative. I ask the Minister to consider it.
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Greencore
09/02/06 - Today Greencore is holding its AGM at which it will announce massive profits and a bright future, and that it does not care that much about beet because it is mainly a British company dealing in snack and convenience foods. While it is looking at that bright future, beet farmers and the workers in Mallow have no future at all. To add insult to injury, to wish Greencore well on its way after leaving chaos behind it, we are giving it over €100 million. That is appalling and should be debated in the House. It is unfair on farmers, workers, the community and European taxpayers. That is not how we want our money spent and it gives a bad impression of the European project.
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Seanad debates are available in full on the Oireachtas website