Danny Healy-Rae warns CAP shifts hurt farmers, urges payment to producers

Well, first of all, welcome each and every one of me here today. I know we all have the one goal and we must work together, but I have to start where this lady finished because I have it written down here. When the single farm payment was initiated for student, we started getting paid. It was far to compensate the farmer for not being paid properly for his produce. Am I right in that? Yeah. But over the years they've changed and they've eroded and that's not happening anymore because there's a point of farmers, whether we like it or not, the truth of it is they're being paid for not working or for not producing food or producing the maximum that their farm could produce. That's the honest customer truth of it. And you see, everything is connected. The young farmers see what's going on, or the young would-be farmers. And the thing that's being raised there as well, whether you have to qualify for payments now to be a full-time farmer. I mean, if a fellow has another job, there's 168 hours in the week and we're going down now to 35 hours for industrial workers or for anyone else in offices or whatever, I guarantee you that even if a fellow did work for 40 hours after the farm, he's making up for it in the double as if he took a different job altogether because they give three or four hours in bed. And whether it is calving in the middle of the spring or the winter, it's the same story when the harvest is on, they're walking through the night, sleeping in the thing at all. And none of us would have survived over the years if we weren't doing something else because with the high points and the low points, in every five-year cycle, you might get one right good year out of farming. We've had it this year. We could say we're good weather, we're good prices, and already the price of milk has gone down. We don't know what we're facing next year. We can't give any assurance to young farmers that are thinking about going into farming because I didn't get it, he didn't get it when he started out farming. There's no such thing. And moreover now with Europe and so many other fellows with Merkis and these other things trying to buck their own court, we'll get cornered in the finish if we'll allow them to bring that in. But we're not working, I don't honestly believe that we're working strong enough in Europe for to block the Merkis and I'm very worried about that because we don't, and I praise whoever came out and found out about the Brazilian beef last week. There was someone working there, there was someone got there anywhere to find that out at this time because it's a crucial time and they'll have to recognize that fact because that's what's happening and it's like a wedge that will drive into an oak block and go trying to split it. When they'll get the wedge in it all, they'll drive it further. 90, it'll be 190, no bother at all. And who's going to follow them up? Do you need to get my chance to answer the questions as well? Could I just briefly say on the compensatory mechanism, I think it is really important. One of the things that does affect the structure of this is that it really does redefine cap payments from a compensatory mechanism to an income support. And that's really important, I think probably more important than most farmers and maybe politicians realize. If there's a compensation in recognition of a loss suffered to your detriment, that's an entitlement that you have. You can sit at a table and negotiate that. You can provide evidence of the loss that you suffer. An income support is not something that you're entitled to. And that's a really important change in terms of how Europe is viewing farmers. And it has legal implications to say that we've changed from a compensatory model to an income support model. We're not here to be social welfare farmers. That's not what the people in this country want. I'm glad you raised this because, you see, when you're giving people this option of these schemes for environmental reasons and to help the climate or whatever, this is not farm production. You're cutting off farm production, all these schemes. And to see what will eventually happen. These schemes, they announce these small, different schemes that suit different farmers. And what they're actually doing is actually suiting them by stopping them, doing farming. We were brought up to farm what we had and to reclaim and, you know, make as much as we could out of every acre or quarter of an acre that we had. But that's not the way it is known. We can't have it both ways, like this lady said. It can't. It was initially supposed to help fellows that weren't being paid for production. But now Europe and the Greens and all these fellows have managed to call these payments as payments for farmers. As such, they're not. They're for a different thing altogether. They're not for food production. Do we agree with that? That means there's money from them to them and food. Mr. Cap, can I come in now? Cap, shall crack what was created to guarantee food and the support of all communities and keep farmers' income stable? Because the Commission has lost its way. It's stripping our income supports, pointing down the regulations and turning a blight eye as cheap, low standard imports replace the EU-produced product. And that's what's after happening. And that's why it's going to happen. With Mercosur at all, that's what's going to happen. Like, it was there to pop up farm, but it's no longer there. That's the big thing. Like, we're talking about the thing. The way I look at, for the cap payments, it needs to come in for the... The main thing is that most of the money funding of the cap payments goes towards the payment producer. That'd be my total demand. He'd all be in support. Producing the lamb, producing the milk, producing the... producing the... The calf, the whole... That's the man, man. That's the man that's doing the main work. Like, a lot of people... I'm not saying I'm the part-time farmers, but a lot of people that's feeding cattle and are feeding store lambs or feeding bulls, a lot of them part-time farmers. But mainly, the people that's producing the... The part is the... The primary... It's the primary producers, the main people that need the cap money. They're... I mean, they've seen too many bad times over the years. Like, we've seen it over the years, 600-700 euros for a calf as a win. I don't want to say to no man didn't even pay for feeding the cow. So, like, that's what we want to see. In the new cap, the main thing is, like I said, incentives there, incentives, like I'll just say, and look after the primary producer. And cut ICBF, cut Borbier, cut all these boys out of grants. They're all taking a little bit of money out of our single farm. Cap wasn't about him to suit them. It was about him to suit the farmer, not to suit these guys. The other thing, then, is this fact that we don't have a level playing pitch. It's affecting the tillage, I mean. Did you? And big time. And if Mercosur happens, it will affect beef, it will affect morton, it will affect daire. And, you see, when we do get properly paid for one year, like I often say we do in five, when we do get paid for it, then some other genius will carry more. So what we increased, like driving up the price of fertilizer, and driving up the price of plastic, and driving up the price of batteries, even for old tractors, something they'll think is something they're making so much now, now's our chance. So, like, there don't seem to be any regulation like that. We've got swamped with the cost of fertilizer, whatever they could think of. And now they want us, the other thing that they're at is they wanted us to use this, what do they call it, this urea, protected urea, to actually grow nothing. That's the truth about it. And just in the name of climate change. And if we were here, secular, secular, and they said, we won't change the weather. No one of us. In the Dáil or anywhere else, we won't change the weather. And he can forget about it if that's what they're at. Thank you. I'll move on to Thank you.