Michael Fitzmaurice warns 24% EU shortfall threatens food security

First of all, you are welcome. This is like talking about something and we are not knowing what is going to happen, to be quite frank about it, because it is all going to be decided in Europe. At the moment, it is 24% of a shortfall, which is scandalous. Second of all, I think we have to acknowledge the work that is done by leader right around the country, everywhere, in local small communities. I want to remember Tomás Beeds does an awful lot with me and the work that is put in by leaders in every county. It would be shambolic if they are not included in the budget. At the moment, con a spade a spade, it is not there. There is no point in saying. I think it is for us to maybe do up a report, if the Chair and the Committee agree with it, that we send to both our Minister and to our MEPs and to the Commissioner in Europe. They are more interested in guns and bombs than they are in food security and helping local rural communities. That is the bottom line. We will be pushing everywhere we can, but to be quite frank about it, we are shouting from a distance. Let us be honest with you, it is no point when we are dressing and making a sealed purse out of ourselves a year. We are not going to do that because we will be on a cognate, to be quite frank about it. I think that we will keep at it. We are meeting the different groups to hear their thoughts. If there is a shortfall, I think the National Parliament will have to take up the shortfall. That is simple facts. Whether we like that or not, we either want to decide if we want good quality food and do we want farmers or do we want to be getting angel dust food in from Brazil or other places like that. That is the bottom line. That is all I am going to deal with on the Leader side of it. In the line of Macra, first of all, Josephine, congrats on your new Presidency. Land mobility, first of all, to look at the budget and cap. At the moment there is not what there was there for a young farmer. Now I am going to go talking about more. Second of all, in the line of what you have sent proposals forward and there was a lot of talk before the election, of different ways of trying to make land more accessible. There is a lot of different ways of trying to make land more accessible. But there is a problem in the new Presidency, new Presidency. Land mobility, first of all, to look at the budget and cap. At the moment there is not what there was there for a young farmer. Now I am going to go talking about more. Second of all, in the line of what you have sent proposals forward and there was a lot of talk before the election of different ways of trying to make land more accessible. But there is a problem, and Elaine, you touched on it there. Now, I wouldn't all agree with you what you said. There is a problem where there's a lot of youngsters going to Australia and they'll go to the mines and they'll work 17, 18 hours a day and they'll work 14 hour days and they'll work every week, even the week they're to be off. And they get a good ball of money. And some of them actually will say, I don't want the land. How are we going to solve that? I suppose, coming back to solving the problem with the land, I suppose, everything with my hat on, I come back to the land mobility service. For instance, we'll just say, we have a farm at home, I don't want it. We'll just say, obviously I do. Just correct that. We'll just say, I don't want this. I can go to the land mobility service. It gets into that, at least where the transfer eventually goes over to that young farmer. It has to be a young trained farmer. There is a problem, do you not agree? And we have to try and face this and make it more attractive for the simple reason. A lot of people nowadays, once Monday to Friday, nine to five, they don't want to be pulling a KFU Saturday or Sunday night. That's why, look at the figures today. Have a look at our national herd today. It's down another 120,000. We are down 250,000 in sucklers over the last few years. That's people saying to themselves, and I know the Wayland trade is good this year, thank God. But that's a lot of people saying to themselves, what was out of it is not rewarding us. A lot of people are picking a different type of lifestyle. And we have to try and encourage young people into farming to make it attractive. It's difficult as well to get cover if you want to go away a weekend or whatever. And how do we solve all them little bits? Because one time ago, everyone, including myself when I was a young book, were loon to get the lend, but they were trying to howl on to it too long. And now, when they're nearly going to let it come to us, there's a lot of them saying, and we have to be honest about it, there's a lot of them saying, with rules and regulations, first of all, out of Europe, like, a farmer now is nearly more, it's more about the paperwork now nearly than it is about the farm, to be quite frank about it. One wrong thing and the grant is gone or whatever, you know, you're going to be penalised. And a young farmer scheme, and we know all of this, where it is the highest, say, it is the highest in the department, 1% of all farmers is all that's inspected in Ireland. In the young farmer scheme, it's 15%. Why? Because there was a lot of problems found, and then it's a double bubble penalty, which I find very unfair on a young farmer. If you're getting, for the 50 hectares, if you're 8,000 that you get, it's a penalty of 8,000 on top wood. And by jizz, that's harsh on any young farmer starting off. I'm going to come in on the attractiveness. I suppose for our young farmers, first of all, a lot of them don't know if they have a future around their family farm, because that conversation around succession hasn't started. And we as an organisation are lobbying and reminding people to start that conversation at the farm table and give young people a little bit of certainty. Now, speaking of certainty, that's another issue for young farmers. And that goes beyond, I suppose, the cap. If you think of everything that's happening in the agricultural world at the moment, in terms of derogation, recursive, the changing, like you said, all of the changing grants, the future of the cap. A young farmer doesn't know what's coming down the line. How are they expected to enter a sector when they don't know what's going to happen? They don't know if their future is going to be economically viable. They can't make a business plan because things are changing day to night. So, as a national government, we need people to actually support our young farmers and lobby for them, provide certainty for them, and provide a future for them. In fairness to a national government, they're badly in control of the derogation because it's going to be decided in Europe. Do you understand me? The cap is going to be decided in Europe. And we don't know, or any of us as public reps, what new regulations. The regulations are coming down the line constantly. The amount of comms we get here, and it's more about all the different environmental stuff that's coming now. It's a worry. And what I'm saying, there's a lot of, sort of, from a distance regulation that we don't know about that's crippling them. But how do we, can ye, have ye any solution of trying to keep, get them into it? And the other side of it is people want a life as well. It's like one time ago the local doctor, they'd done 100 hours a week. You could throw a stone up at the window at night and they'd come out and they'd go to the house. Whereas nowadays, they want hours and they want time off. But farmers as well will be trying to, and how do you get the people to try and keep it going when they're gone away? Thank you for a very quick answer, because I need to move on to Deputy Ard as well. So anyone for a... Just a response, maybe. Thank you. Thanks for the proposal, Deputy and the Senate for backing it there, that national government potentially take up the shortfall. I think that has been done in the past as well. There is, as we mentioned earlier, a co-financing rate as well that's across the cap. But potentially that can be done at programme level. But also in the notice, when there was a leader of cuts as well, there was a national rural development programme brought in at that stage as well. So the precinct is there. So thanks for that, Chair. Thank you.