Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin
Wicklow-Wexford · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“This is Groundhog Day in terms of school transport. It is the same as last year. The only thing that has changed in the school transport system is the families affected. We are still inundated with emails from frustrated parents from Rathdrum to Kilmuckridge. Children who have always qualified have suddenly been refused tickets.”
“Children in Coláiste Bhríde, Carnew, who had always received transport were told no service was available, but when we contacted the provider, it said that a service was available. The waiting time to hear back from Bus Éireann is unacceptable.”
“Irish author Emma Donoghue stated, "They are robbing us in hopes of replacing us." That is a shocking statement. Irish artists, writers, musicians, actors, composers and performers are being ripped off by big tech billionaires through plagiarism or, to give it the proper term, theft.”
“They tell our stories and shape national identity. However, they are now forced to take on some of the world's largest tech companies simply to vindicate their rights. It is creating a dystopian nightmare. We have to stop it.”
“Higgins, Joseph O'Connor, Gerry Adams, Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín and Sally Rooney. We need to see action on this in Ireland and at a European level to protect artists' rights and income, respect their creativity and defend their livelihoods. It has to stop now.”
“I highlight the serious case of a ten-year-old called Poppy, whose experience is a compelling example of a wider service failure for children in my constituency of Wicklow-Wexford, which covers south Wicklow and north Wexford.”
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“As the Minister of State knows well, County Wexford is experiencing a mental health crisis due to the lack of an acute mental health facility since the closure of St. Senan's psychiatric hospital in 2013. This facility served as the primary mental health institution in the region for over 150 years. There has been no replacement, meaning there is no acute mental health unit in Wexford. This is shocking in the context of the escalating mental health crisis we are witnessing nationwide. It is deeply troubling and leaves a significant gap in service provision in the south east. I was alarmed by information I received. While I knew this already, I wanted to confirm the exact figures by means of a parliamentary question before Christmas.”
“As Deputy Carthy mentioned, Phil Hogan deceived the people, stating beef was off the table in negotiations when it clearly was not. It became in the end a battle between Irish beef and German beamers and we know which takes precedence for von der Leyen. The Government has one last opportunity to redeem itself in the coming weeks. It can outline the steps it intends to take to stop Mercosur beef entering the Irish food chain alongside Irish meat, which is the best in the world. Will it support the legal action? Will it mandate its MEPs to oppose this deal? Will it actively engage with other MEPs to do so?”
“It is still possible but, due to Government inaction over the years, it is an uphill battle, with us having just 14 MEPs out of 720 in the European Parliament. Sinn Féin has been opposing Mercosur on this side of the House for years. We had a motion in the Chamber seven years ago on it. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were never really opposed to it. The Government signed us up to the Lisbon treaty, which removed Ireland's veto on trade. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil signed us up to a negotiating mandate that allowed the European Commission to negotiate this rotten deal, knowing full well it would have negative consequences for Ireland. It is bad for anyone who eats beef or chicken, bad for farmers and bad for the environment.”
“The Government is very much out of step with the farmers in my constituency, Wicklow-Wexford, who marched in Athlone on Saturday. The Government could have stopped Mercosur but never made any effort to block it over the 25 years it was in the making. There was no real effort to reach out to other countries to form a blocking minority. Just before Christmas, Sinn Féin had a Private Members' Bill in the Chamber. Ministers refused to state then whether they were opposed to it. The eleventh-hour vote against the rotten deal was welcome but ultimately meaningless. Many people saw it is a cynical manoeuvre. The Government waited in a cowardly manner until Italy had changed course before opposing it. I say "oppose" in inverted commas because it has now made it very difficult to defeat.”
“The same companies that profited from telling us back in the 1950s how great smoking was for us are now aggressively targeting a new generation of customers, and they have vastly increased their market. We need action, and we need to be very innovative and clever in our legislation. It is about protecting the youth through education, regulation and awareness. Sinn Féin wants a ban on disposable vapes because they are the equivalent of smoking a battery. They are the most dangerous form of vape for the environment and children. As I said, this is the third Bill in three years on vaping and smoking issues. We need action and legislation instead of mere fine words. As the old saying goes, fine words butter no parsnips.”
“Irish research has shown that 23% of 15- to 17-year-olds vape regularly and that teenagers who vape are three to five times more likely to start smoking in comparison with those who never vaped. Vapes are harmful to the environment. In the UK, 5 million disposable vapes are thrown away every week. We then have plastic, heavy metals, nicotine salts and lithium batteries in the environment. Most of the popular vape brands are owned by the big tobacco companies. In Ireland, an estimated 12.5 million disposable vapes were sold in 2022. One in ten 13-year-olds have vaped. These disposable vapes are ending up in landfill sites. They are hugely damaging to the environment and pose serious health and environmental risks.”
“In my constituency of Wicklow-Wexford, there are dedicated vape shops in both Gorey and Arklow. Vaping can lead to nicotine addiction, which affects brain development, mood, concentration, anxiety and memory. It can contribute to health issues, mental health issues and a transition to smoking and tobacco products. As I said, the vaping companies are manipulating our young people through very clever marketing tactics. They are being very innovative and moving quicker than we are moving. We need legislation that can and will move with the times when these companies change tack. We need to ban vapes that target children with appealing flavours, designs and colours. These companies have a very strong social media presence, especially on TikTok.”
“The single-use, flashy and flavoured disposable vapes that are targeting our children definitely need to be banned. However, the Government Bill only targets products which are being phased out anyway. Sinn Féin has been raising this issue for years. Ireland is years behind the curve in comparison with many countries. Vapes and nicotine pouches in particular pose a very serious health risk to children. My son is 13 years old and one in ten 13-year-olds has vaped. Their brains are still developing. We need to change tack to keep up with these manipulative companies, which are innovating and changing course. They are targeting children with rechargeable, disposable models to circumvent the legislation. We need to be equally innovative in our legislation.”
“Seven successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments have been repeatedly requested to do so but, it seems, they simply did not want to draw down the funds. One might ask why. It would cost the Government nothing to do so. Is it because it might highlight the lack of interest of the previous seven Governments and previous Ministers? I do not know. I will leave that for others to decide. I am looking across at the bronze statues of people I assume we are supposed to be honouring in this Chamber. I see Cathal Brugha in front of me, Pádraig Pearse trasna anseo, Tom Clarke trasna ansin agus ar an taobh eile uaimse, James Connolly. I wonder what they would think of an approach that always seems to be about selling Ireland short or selling it out. Ceapaim go mbeadh náire orthu.”
“We need to know whether the Government, for once, will stand up for Ireland and passionately represent the interests of Ireland in the EU, not the other way around of slavishly representing the EU's interests in Ireland. We are an island and a seafaring nation, with our people travelling as far away as Iceland for more than 1,000 years. Following last Saturday's Brussels sellout, this is the darkest hour for the Irish fishing industry. I have often referred in this Chamber to Arklow fisherman CJ Gaffney and his family. Their situation typifies the Government's do-nothing approach. A family and their livelihood are destroyed and this has been going on for 16 years. There was repeated advice that there are funds available to compensate them but that the Government must draw them down.”
“The EU has failed Ireland's fishing industry repeatedly and we are once more paying the price for the chronic overfishing of shared stocks by big boats from third countries. The recent EU fisheries deal from Brussels is a betrayal of the fishing industry and has been described as catastrophic. We are talking about 2,300 community jobs in coastal communities, including in Arklow and Courtown, being in immediate danger. The Seafood Ireland Alliance has estimated a loss of €94 million to our fishing industry, with wider economic impacts reaching up to €200 million by next year. We need a radical reset of the meek approach of the Government. The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste must urgently intervene to make it clear Ireland will not stand for this.”
“While it was welcome news that Scoil Phádraig in Avoca has had a special class sanctioned this year, nevertheless when the county is combined with the Kildare-west Wicklow health area, the total number of children who are waiting for an assessment of need reaches a staggering 2,314. That is absolutely incredible. In County Wexford, a massive 46% of children who received an assessment of need this year were assessed outside of the legally required six-month timeframe, as outlined in the Disability Act 2005. It is the same story from Barndarrig right down to Ballindaggan, from Knockananna to Kilmuckridge, Arklow, Gorey, Carnew, Ferns and all the other villages in between where parents have contacted us from. A whole generation of young children have been failed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, so this has to change.”
“This time last year I was still teaching special education, something I have done for many of my 34 years working as a primary school teacher. I have never seen the crisis of assessment of need as bad as it is at present, so much so that the inspirational 15-year-old Cara Darmody has felt forced to sleep outside the gates of this House once again on such a horrible winter's evening. In County Wicklow, which is in the CHO 6 area, we have been faced with massive numbers of children waiting for over a year to have the first contact. Figures show there were as many as 1,000 children in this category this time last year.”
“This demonstrates the real financial dangers that Ireland would face if this proceeds. I urge the Minister and the Government to oppose this ratification. I do not see any benefit to the Irish public. It undermines Irish sovereignty. I am looking at the statues behind us in the Chamber. I am wondering what the people who died for Irish sovereignty would think when the Government can bring in this law. It would undermine our sovereignty, threaten housing, public services, workers’ rights and climate commitments, and even, as Deputy Ó Snodaigh has just mentioned, limit Irish language rights. I believe we must protect our people, not expose them to lawsuits from multinational corporations. I urge the Government to oppose this.”
“the Government of Ireland case that ratifying CETA was unconstitutional so, basically, the Government is trying to break the Irish law, which is crazy. The Government’s publication of the Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025 appears to be a workaround to bypass this ruling, which was damning and a terrible indictment of the Irish Government, thereby disregarding both constitutional safeguards and public opposition. We know about investor courts worldwide. They have already awarded over $100 million to corporations. I believe one African country, Togo, has even been sued because of the safeguards it put on tobacco advertising to prevent children from smoking. It lost the case. The tobacco corporations wanted to sue it for protecting the children of the country.”
“If a future Government sought to establish publicly run care facilities, these companies could sue Ireland for interfering with their profits. Of course, this undermines our ability to provide essential services in the public interest. Investor courts could penalise Ireland for progressive legislation on workers’ protections or climate policy. They would restrict our ability to meet obligations to citizens in future generations and would lock us into corporate-driven priorities rather than democratic ones. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are attempting to push this legislation through without proper scrutiny despite the far-reaching implications. This should not happen. The Supreme Court has already ruled in the Costello v.”
“I believe it would allow companies to sue Ireland for so-called loss of profit, which would place corporate interests over the public good of the Irish people. Ireland is already facing a severe housing crisis that is driving our youth from the land of their birth. Ireland's largest landlord is a Canadian company, IRES REIT, which owns thousands of build-to-rent apartments here. It could use investor courts to challenge rent controls or rent reforms if it believed that such controls would interfere with its profits. This would make it nearly impossible to deliver affordable housing or protect tenants from exploitative practices. Canadian corporations have significant investments in nursing homes and care providers.”
“The CETA agreement is dangerous for Ireland and may even be worse than Mercosur. I do not believe it is in the interests of the Irish people. I urge the Government not to ratify it and, if necessary, to put it to the people to decide in a referendum. It undermines our sovereignty and, basically, our right to decide our own destiny. It risks entrenching the corporate power of billionaires over Irish democratic decision-making. I believe we must protect our people, not expose them to lawsuits from multinational billionaires or investors. Ratifying CETA would subject Ireland to investor courts, as my colleagues have outlined, and bypass our judicial system. These special courts are accessible only to large corporations. This will undermine the sovereignty of our own courts and democratic accountability.”
“Tonight, we have highlighted the dangerous working conditions that exist for those in our Coast Guard and rescue services. Twenty-four hour shifts are being under-recorded around Ireland's coastline, resulting in extreme fatigue and safety concerns, which is a reckless approach by the State to peoples' lives. It is unbelievable. The State is simply not valuing our Coast Guard, which does this lifesaving work in really bad working conditions. My colleagues have been outlining the reasons why we are seeking fair and safe working conditions for our Coast Guard and rescue services staff and why we tabled motion in order to stand up and protect those who protect us. I ask the Government to support the motion in full and to ensure the safety of our Coast Guard and search and rescue staff around the island of Ireland.”
“With this new building strategy, Coast Guard members and I would like to know if the work that is being carried to date on potential sites in Courtown is still valid or will new market trawls be carried out? How long will the process take? If there is nothing available on the market, will it progress? How long will the OPW wait to see if property comes on stream? The plan is to move to a modular style building for cost effectiveness, efficiency and value for money. Has the modular design been finalised? If not, what can we expect to see in a final design? There are all these questions. Planning permission for an upgrade to the Arklow station has been in for over one year now. People in the Arklow area are asking if it has gone out to tender. When are the works due to begin? Has a contractor been appointed?”
“The Courtown-Arklow Coast Guard unit does incredible work on the Wicklow-Wexford coast and put their lives at risk to protect others. The least they deserve is proper and safe working conditions in a modern workplace in the form of a new Coast Guard station. A total of 23 men and woman had been working out of a 10 ft by 20 ft room in Courtown using the same sink for making tea and coffee as they do to wash up after an incident. They had no toilets, which is unbelievable. Thankfully, they have now been allowed to use the local parochial house on a temporary basis. However, they urgently need a new base. There is a new Coast Guard building strategy. For several years now, the Department and the OPW have been talking about potential new sites for a Coast Guard station in the Courtown area.”
“It is not too late because the Government must do everything possible and work with other member states to use a blocking minority at the EU Council in December. This is a terrible deal for everybody.”
“Our beef is produced to world-class standards, yet we are forced to compete against cheap, inferior and substandard chemical beef from South America in respect of which there is little or no traceability. The agreement will devastate agriculture and accelerate the environmental destruction of rainforests, which are basically the lungs of the earth. All farming organisations are opposed to it. I salute them in the context of their strong presence here tonight. I ask the farmers of Ireland who do so to please stop voting for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the parties that are selling them out. If this continues, it will be the equivalent of a turkey voting for Christmas in future. We are sending a united message tonight that this deal must be stopped.”
“Sinn Féin's motion calls for cross-party support to send a clear message that Ireland opposes this agreement. On Thursday last, I stood outside this House with all the farming organisations. I have met with farmers from across Wicklow and Wexford on many occasions. I welcome those who are here tonight. Not one of them supports this deal, which is absolutely wrong on every level and which will sound the death knell for Irish agriculture. The Government's response to date has been lacklustre. It has taken a sit-back-and-wait approach rather than fighting for the interests of Irish farmers and all consumers of Irish food. As already stated, the negotiations are now finished and the deal is done. Now it is time to decide and, basically, get off the fence.”
“Irish agriculture, public health and the environment cannot be sacrificed for the sake of Ursula von der Leyen selling more German cars in South America. The time has come for Government TDs from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independents to stand with farmers instead of speaking out of both sides of their mouths, running with the hare and pulling with the hound. We have a large farming community in south Wicklow and north Wexford the members of which know that this deal is not good for them. The negotiations have concluded and the deal is done. Now is the time for people to decide if they are for or against it. It is very simple, get off the fence. The Mercosur trade agreement is a terrible deal for agriculture. It is dangerous for Irish and EU consumers and deadly for the environment.”
“The gradient of the roads, the way they taper down to the verges, is putting strain on the steering systems. We have all of these technical extra costs, which people do not have in many other counties that do not have these road conditions. The Government has to address this, as the county council has repeatedly requested. We in Sinn Féin in this motion call on the Government to stop the proposed toll increases, end the farcical penalty of having to pay motor tax in one single payment, deal with the insurance companies, reverse the carbon tax increase of October, and not to proceed with further increases, which are really fleecing people in rural Ireland.”
“Now, the engineers are saying we need a massive €194 million to bring them up to what engineers would class as an acceptable standard. On the way up to the inauguration yesterday morning, I hit a semi-pothole, a sort of a broken, jagged verge that had been covered in the rain. After that, I narrowly missed a car while trying to avoid another deep pool which could have been the same. These types of things are impacting hugely on people who live in rural Wexford and south Wicklow in terms of maintenance costs because they need to have a car in these rural areas. All of these are added costs. They include damage to rims, shocks, bushing and inner tie rods. I have become an expert in all these things with the amount I have had to pay out in the last few years. It is the same for lots of people I know.”
“People in rural Ireland, such as in my own area of Wicklow-Wexford, need to use a car. They are particularly impacted by the rising cost of motoring. They are getting fleeced with fuel costs, rip-off insurance, which was just mentioned, parking charges and maintenance for service repairs including NCT, especially for those using rural back roads, which are in dire condition where I live. There are financing charges if they have a car loan, and then there is depreciation, with a car losing 15% to 35% of its value in the first year and 50% by year 3. Do not get me started on Wexford rural roads. According to NOAC intercounty comparisons, Wexford has the worst rural secondary roads in Ireland. That has been the case for 30 years. There is an estimated shortfall of €60 million in Government funding and cuts over the past 15 years.”
“It is prolonging the family's suffering. It is a grave injustice that is continuing. It is not costing us anything. The EU is paying for it but the Government is moving the goalposts and not drawing it down. I ask the Tánaiste to act with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to get the wheels moving and put an end to this injustice, even just to compensate the family. If that could be done, I would really appreciate it.”
“I want to raise the 16-year-long injustice that has been inflicted on the Arklow fisherman, CJ Gaffney, and his family. They have lost everything. It is has been described as a life sentence. They have been 16 years campaigning for justice, compensation and improved safety standards for fishing vessels but mainly compensation. They have taken their battle to the Netherlands, Germany and Brussels, as the Tánaiste knows well. The EU has stated that there is a fund in place to compensate the family. I know the Tánaiste, Taoiseach and MEPs have all agreed, the Council has agreed but nobody is actually doing anything to draw down the funds. The family feels abandoned for the past 16 years. The buck has been passed from Department to Department and the Government has refused to act to draw the funds down.”
“Protocol 21 of the Lisbon Treaty has given the Government the opt-out clause for certain measures. However, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and others opted into the EU migration pact which comes into force next June.”
“So, it was a win-win situation for the Government. The Government that engineered the problem is now frantically searching for scapegoats and PR stunts to put the genie back in the bottle. Over many years as a councillor I exposed this farce. Sinn Féin has been clear from the beginning that where a person is not entitled to be in Ireland they should be returned safely to their country of origin and the deportation order should be both enforced and tracked. We need to have the powers to return immediately those who are not entitled to be here. An Irish Government is best placed to make decisions in the interests of the Irish people, not unelected bureaucrats in Brussels or faceless EU institutions that make the decisions for us, undermining our democracy and our sovereignty.”
“There you have it. The Committee of Public Accounts has heard that the State spent an estimated €2.1 billion on IPAS last year. That means €2.1 billion of the public's hard-earned money went to cowboy speculators. How did we get to this sorry state of affairs? Until recently, any attempt by ordinary decent people, who are the vast majority, to have a rational or reasonable discussion on this subject was shut down by the State and its institutions in all its different guises. It was obvious this was a dangerous, reckless and unhealthy head-in-the-sand approach by the Government that left a vacuum into which stepped a tiny number with divisive and malign intent. The Government handed it to them on a plate. Why would it not, when it is ourselves that are getting attacked on the issue moreso than the Government that is responsible?”
“The Government's policy to date in the area of IPAS processing and enforcement has been reckless, farcical and absurd. The State simply could not be bothered applying its own rules. The structures of Tusla have been a sham, which was something I highlighted at an Oireachtas committee meeting just weeks ago. Sadly, just a few days after that, we saw the end result of this reckless policy when a ten-year-old girl was raped or sexually assaulted by someone not even entitled to be here and for whom there was a deportation order issued that the Government simply had not bothered to enforce. I received a reply from the Minister's office, which stated: "As there are no routine exit checks at Irish borders, it is not possible to accurately provide the number of people who are currently in Ireland subject to deportation orders.".”
“We need to target services properly and we need proper targeted awareness campaigns, better access to screening and mental health services and a cultural shift that encourages people to seek help. We must empower our GPs because they are often the first port of call in a storm. One GP quoted in the report said, "97% of us spoke to a man with suicidal thoughts last year, but only 14% felt confident supporting him", which is quite worrying. We need to invest in preventative care and dismantle the stigma because behind every statistic is a story and behind every story is a life we need to save.”
“Too many men delay seeking medical attention until it is too late. Service gaps are leaving men behind. It is certainly evident in the constituency of Wicklow-Wexford. Trojan work is being done by a number of community-based groups such as Talk to Tom but they have never received one cent of statutory funding, even though they have saved numerous live across the south east. The Samaritans in Arklow are under pressure. They are renting a premises. These services should be State-funded. There is a real shortage of male-specific counselling and outreach programmes and many men still view their symptoms as minor complaints that they do not want to trouble a doctor with, so we have very low engagement. Men in poorer areas are 150% more likely to die before the age of 75 than those in wealthier communities.”
“Neoplasms or tumours, cysts, etc., are the leading cause of death among men, yet early detection rates remain low. We must ask why this is this the case. Respiratory diseases, often linked to lifestyle factors, are claiming lives at alarming rates. Perhaps most concerning is the state of mental health. Suicide is now the leading cause of death among young men in Ireland. Four out of five suicides involve men. Why is this not viewed as an emergency? Are men's lives expendable? Why is this the first time in the history of the Oireachtas apparently that we have had this discussion in Leinster House? That tells us something. Depression, anxiety and substance abuse are widespread, yet in 2025, when we are supposed to be a very enlightened society, the stigma continues causing those who need the services most to suffer in silence.”
“There is certainly a crisis in men's health and it is great that we are having this discussion today. It is quite an historic occasion. A recent report for the South East Technological University, SETU, revealed that 40% of male deaths that occurred before the age of 75 were premature and many were preventable. County Wexford ranks second in this State in terms of premature male mortality rates per county. This could affect someone's husband, brother, father, grandfather, uncle or nephew and, of course, me or anybody here. The leading causes of death among Irish men are coronary heart disease, stroke, pulmonary disease, lung cancer and, of course, suicide. These are not just numbers. They represent lives cut short, families devastated and communities left grieving. Cancer, particularly prostate cancer, remains a major concern.”
“I wish to raise the issue of school funding, specifically regarding schools that have gained a new teaching post this year. Could the Tánaiste look into the specific case of Tinahely National School? I know he knows the area. Such schools were targeted for the new mainstream teacher grant of €9,200. The new school principal, Pádraig O'Connor, has been in regular contact with the Department but he cannot get an update on when the money will come through for furniture and ICT. I would really appreciate it if the Tánaiste could look at that. Another school he knows very well is Coláiste Bhríde in Carnew. The Minister for Education and Youth was there recently. There are plans for a new school building but it is crucial for the school to have a sports ground as well. As the Tánaiste is aware, Carnew is a very sporty area.”
“The verdict of the respected ESRI and other reputable groups was that household income across the board would be reduced by 2% and that poverty would increase. Those are the unpalatable facts. I think it was a shameful, cynical approach for the Government to buy the election last year and make the people pay for it this year. It is a shocking, cynical approach to politics.”
“There were no energy credits, no cap on food price inflation, no grocery supports, no rent freeze or ban on rent increases, the dreaded USC that was brought in for a 12-month period 14 years ago remains, there was nothing for tillage farmers, student fees will be €500 more than last year, there were minimal supports for small businesses that are the beating heart of local communities, there was an increase in the carbon tax and to top it all, petrol and diesel prices went up as well. The man or woman in the Wexford-Wicklow area who gets up early in the morning to maybe fight his or her way through traffic to get to Dublin has been screwed once again. That is shocking in a country that is awash with money and has a surplus of over €10 billion.”
“I received a lot of budget feedback in the Wicklow-Wexford constituency over the weekend. The general feeling was that ordinary working people had been left behind once again. They spoke of the proverbial squeezed middle or the new working poor. A common line from people was along the lines of how they had thought before the election that the Government would look after the working people but, sadly, they would now be better off not working. That is a shocking assessment. They spoke of how there was no increase in child benefit, childcare fees were remaining at approximately €800 per month or more, there was no tax relief for workers and local property tax was going up. There was no help with the cost-of-living crisis in many ways.”
“He could be handing him a white elephant if he cannot make money from it and does not have a livelihood. Will the Minister and the Ministers of State introduce, at the very least, a proper, area-based tillage incentive scheme of at least €100 per acre? We need it before we drive the final nail into the coffin of Irish farming and drive farmers off the land altogether, which is something we in this country have now been doing for 6,000 years. Something needs to change urgently.”
“It is genetically modified and it comes with a massive carbon footprint. It does not make any sense. With Mercosur, we are, insanely, flooding the European market with 90,000 tonnes of untraceable beef, grown in place of the rainforests that have been cut down in South America. We are saying that is a sustainable solution. It is absolute lunacy. At the same time, Irish farmers are highly regulated and over-regulated. If things do not change, we could have a food shortage in years to come. A tillage farmer in my area, Thomas Kenny, wants to hand the baton to his son, 15-year-old Tomás, whom I taught years ago. He is a great farmer and is absolutely passionate about it. He lives for farming. Can the Government guarantee that Tomás will have a future? Thomas, the father, does not know whether he should hand the farm to his son.”
“Mass importation of products certainly was not the vision of the patriotic founding fathers of this country, of the Proclamation or the democratic programme of the First Dáil. They spoke about having some level of economic independence, whereas at the moment we are becoming a dependent vassal State rather than a sovereign one. Ireland has mainly stopped growing grain for human consumption. The majority of flour is imported - 69% from the UK, 11% from Germany and 8% from France. That is why I salute the farmers in the south-east last week who blockaded a boat coming into Wexford with 300,000 tonnes of foreign barley. Direct action like the French farmers engage in is something good that we can import from France. This imported grain is substandard and often has black grass, which is an invasive species.”
“The Government closed down our own fertiliser factory in Arklow in my local area in 2002. Just three years later, it torpedoed the sugar beet industry in the south-east and beyond. However, barley now amazingly costs the same as it did back in 1974, the year I started school and ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest. That is how long ago it is. The drinks industry uses around 300,000 tonnes of grain annually. We do not have enough grain in Ireland. At the very minimum, we should use all the Irish grain first before mass importation. Deputy Kenny just pointed out the idiocy of how Irish whiskey does not need to have Irish grain in it. I am sure the Minister will agree that this needs to be examined straight away.”
“As the Minister and Ministers of State know, farmers are in intense crisis at the moment following two absolutely terrible years. Will the Government introduce a proper area-based payment tillage incentive scheme? Currently, the Government is giving €40 per acre whereas it needs to be at least €100 per acre or €250 per ha, as requested by the farming organisations that I have met with on a number of occasions. That needs to be done as a matter of urgency. Farmers are being fleeced. There are rising input costs, machinery costs, fertiliser costs, sprays, diesel and other items in the local hardware shop have gone up. They have less money to spend locally, so we are all being affected either directly or indirectly. Fertiliser prices have tripled since the Ukrainian war. How can farmers withstand three times the price?”
“This is something we have been doing in Ireland for 6,000 years and it would be shameful if we were to drive all the young farmers off the land. Many of them do not see a future and neither do their parents with regard to passing on the farm to their children.”
“I am not convinced by the Government's response. The fact of the matter is that we are in the middle of a crisis and farmers have no increase this year. It is still €40 per acre. In her response, the Minister of State mentioned the drinks industry. We have such opportunities but it is incredible to believe that our famous Irish whiskey does not have a requirement to have Irish grain in it. This is absolutely incredible. It is one small thing. There would be incredible opportunities if we were to make additional changes, as well as additional payments, and have proper regulation whereby there should be Irish grain in Irish whiskey. It is a very basic requirement. We could do great things and this is one small example. The Government really needs to have a vision for an industry that is dying on its feet.”
“Thomas is a great, passionate farmer, but the question I would like to put to the Government is whether i can guarantee that Tomás will have a future in farming in this country. Will it be viable for him? His father, Thomas, needs to know if he is to pass on the farm to him. Will the Government introduce a proper area-based tillage incentive scheme of at least €100 per acre, that is, €250 per hectare, because otherwise we will drive a nail into the coffin of Irish farming, and we have been farming for 6,000 years in this country. It looks like we are going to drive every farmer off the land, especially every young farmer. I would like to know the answer.”