Martin Kenny
Sligo-Leitrim · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“A debate here for a couple of hours is fine, but I remember being involved in some of the deep talks with people in the early days of the peace process. We sat in rooms and talked about reconciliation. I met Garret FitzGerald on many occasions at the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation.”
“Of course, we have the areas of natural constraint payments that most farmers on this side of the Border avail of. Unfortunately, those payments are no longer available in the North. Sinn Féin has recommended that the payments should be restored. Farmers need support. Brexit took their support away.”
“I welcome this debate. Such a debate has been needed for quite a long time. The reality is that for many people, the issue of the financial implications of Irish unity has been used as a put-down to try to smother or put a stop to argument and debate. This is a welcome way in which we can open that up.”
“I hope Government will reflect on that and recognise that we need to build a process. There is an energy for reunification among ordinary people the length and breadth of the country. This is about the physical constraints, but is also about identity. Many people who live on this island have a British identity.”
“As the Taoiseach is aware, for many years people with mental health issues have been attending emergency departments in our hospitals. Many of them get very poor outcomes. They experience long delays and end up on trolleys. Sometimes they are referred for short-term stays or to community services, which offer little or no service.”
“I appreciate all that and the farmers forum is a positive advancement on things, but we are back to the problem at the very core of this issue, which is that the chair of Bord Bia has been using imported beef from Brazil as part of his mix to sell product.”
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“The State needs to provide its own homeless accommodation. That needs to be looked at in every constituency around the country. They are simply not there. Local authorities are finding it very difficult to find homeless accommodation for people. They are sometimes taking children far away from the schools they go to try to find them somewhere to stay. Most of this involves people being given notices to quit and having to leave rented accommodation because the landlord is selling up or whatever, which is his or her entitlement. However, if the people do not have anywhere else to go, they are in a huge crisis. The second issue I wish to raise relates Uisce Éireann and water services particularly. The water in south Leitrim is produced in a plant beside the River Shannon in Carrick-on-Shannon.”
“There are three issues I wish to raise in regard to housing. The first is homelessness; something we see across the length and breadth of the country, particularly in urban areas. I come from a rural part of the country, Sligo–Leitrim. We have a homelessness crisis. We have a lot of people sleeping out in doorways, which we did not have before. We have many people staying with relatives or friends or in their cars. It is something we have noticed in the past couple of months that has come to the fore. Big efforts are being made by the local authority but there simply is not enough homeless accommodation to deal with the crisis. We have single mothers with young children staying in hotels with no facilities to cook, wash and so on. These are serious issues that we need to deal with.”
“As we know, many people live in the South and work in the North, or live in the North and work in the South. It happens all the time up and down across the Border region. Sometimes, people have two jobs - one in the North and one in the South. It depends on those circumstances. In all of those situations, all we need to do is put something into the regulation that takes care of the problem we have and deals with it efficiently and effectively. This can be done very speedily. I ask the Minister to look at it between now and Christmas and come up with something to resolve the situation before the new year. Go raibh maith agaibh.”
“The fact that they live in two different jurisdictions, although they are only a couple of miles apart, is what gives rise to this peculiarity. This is a carer's case. There are other similar cases where habitual residency comes into play which may affect people's pensions and things like that on both sides of the Border. These are small numbers. We are talking about dozens of people in total. It is something that should be looked at across the whole social welfare code to see if a number of small statutory instruments or amendments can be put in to deal with these circumstances and to sort them out for the people involved. As I say, they are very small numbers. We are talking about people who have, generally, paid into the State because they have been working on this side of the Border.”
“I thank the Minister of State. I am aware of all of these circumstances. Yes, there is a payment in the North but the person who is living in the North and can apply for the carer's benefit in the North has to be caring for a person in that jurisdiction.”
“When she applied she was refused because of the habitual residency condition as she does not live within the State. This is very unfair. It is an anomaly that comes up for a tiny number of people in certain circumstances who are living in the Border area. People in these circumstances are not travelling 50 or 100 miles to care for somebody. It is only people in a small corridor that this would affect. In that context, resolving this issue would not result in a big cost to the State. This needs to happen as quickly as possible.”
“Deputy Smyth is a representative of a Border constituency, the same as I am, so she will very much understand this particular issue. A constituent of mine called Majella contacted me. She was born in Leitrim and lived there practically all of her life. She started her career working in the health services. Then she married a man from Fermanagh and moved six miles up the road. She continued to cross the Border every day to work and worked all her life. Now her mother has become ill towards the end of her life and needs care. Majella got carer's benefit based on the stamps she had accumulated during her working life. However, after 104 weeks she was told to apply for the carer's allowance, which is not stamps based but assessed.”
“We now have an opportunity to be a positive influence again. I welcome the words of the Minister earlier when she said that Ireland wants to play its part in that. We certainly need to be a loud and solid voice for the ordinary people of Sudan to find a peaceful way out of this conflict and to bring to bear positive international pressure to make that happen. We also have to bring to bear positive international pressure for the malign influence of other countries from outside of Sudan, which have been detrimental to this conflict, to pull back and allow a proper peace process to be established in Sudan.”
“We need positive international influence to bring peace about, not the negative international influence that has been there up to now to try to take advantage of the situation that is to the detriment of the people who live in this magnificent and beautiful country. The thousands of tonnes of arms that have gone into Sudan over the past number of years is something that has also fed an arms industry that has backed both sides in the conflict. This is also part of the age-old story we have about conflicts around the globe. We recognise something which is a very common story but on which we have a responsibility to stand very firm. The people of Ireland have a great affinity with many countries in Africa, particularly as many of our missionaries in the past went there and were such a positive influence there.”
“When El Fasher fell, the maternity hospital was attacked and 460 women and girls were murdered. That is just one example. Internationally, this has not been given the level of attention it deserves to get. I worry and I am very concerned when we look at the peace programme that has been put in place. When people are talking about peace, we always accept that and want to see that happen. However, when we hear that it is Trump's United States, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, countries which have been up to their necks in this conflict, which are the ones proposing a peace agreement, it should raise concerns. There is a real need here, particularly for the United Nations but also for the European Union, to become involved on a much higher scale.”
“We are talking about a very large scale. For the people who live there, this has been a tragedy that is going on for decades. Unfortunately, we all watch our televisions every night and see different conflicts in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, many of these conflicts, particularly when they are in Africa, do not get the attention they should get. Many of us meet people from Sudan. There are a number of people I know such as Yousif, a friend of mine, who is from Sudan. There are two families living in Sligo who have family in El Fasher in Sudan and they cannot contact their families. They do not know what has happened to them, where they are or what the situation is. This is a real human tragedy for all of those people. A big part of that tragedy has been the treatment of women and girls in this conflict.”
“Sudan is a very large country with huge natural resources. It has some of the richest agricultural land in Africa running along the edge of the Nile. It has huge natural resources, particularly gold, and it has been long held that much of this conflict is about those natural resources. Indeed, the influence of outside powers in that and the attempt to try to plunder the wealth of that nation to the detriment of its people, is one of the age-old stories of conflict around the globe. Unfortunately, that is the same situation we have unfolding here. The RSF, backed by the United Arab Emirates, back in 2003, I think, when it was then called the Janjaweed, ran through Darfur and burned, pillaged and murdered. It was an absolutely catastrophe. For people to get it into their heads, that region of Dafur is the size of France.”
“How genuine is this Government and the other governments that it is meeting with around Europe in making sure that we block this trade deal and find a way forward to protect consumers and farmers in Europe?”
“I accept that. I understand the point that we cannot produce everything in Ireland. That goes without saying. However, there is an issue regarding the authenticity of the product that we produce if we are labelling it and selling it as Irish and as having that authenticity around it, yet everything that goes into it is coming from somewhere else. We need to find that clear balance in respect of that. Regarding Mercosur, safeguards have been put in place. They have been voted through. There were no amendments made to those safeguards, yet a lot of countries, including Ireland and others of like mind, have expressed sincere difficulties with how far those safeguards go. That raises a red flag for a lot of people out there.”
“That is displacing Irish grain and feed and if we are to be authentic about the quality of our food, we need to ensure that the authenticity can be stood over. For example, people were before the committee recently to speak about growing grain and, in some cases, the only thing that is Irish in Irish whiskey is the water. That is a very bad situation. We need to be authentic about the products we produce and to do so not only from the point of view that they are what they say on the label, but also that we can guarantee their quality. The only way we can guarantee their quality is if we produce the ingredients as well as the finished product here.”
“The Minister mentioned in a previous reply that quite a small amount of beef from Brazil comes into Ireland and that there is no evidence of this issue. Is the evidence being looked for? What kind of investigations are we carrying out into that, from an Irish and European perspective? Similarly, we have a large amount of poultry coming in under the Mercosur deal. I think it is 180,000 tonnes. We need to be vigilant in respect of that. We have a large poultry industry in Ireland and we eat a lot of poultry so we need to ensure it is of the highest quality. I will go back to the issue raised earlier about feedstuffs. A lot of feedstuffs are imported into this country from Latin America and other tropical climates.”
“It is important that the Minister reassure the public that the quality of food we get in Europe is up to the standard and is not being contaminated by food from other countries that is of a lesser quality.”
“I am taking the question on behalf of Deputy Carthy. This goes back to my question at the beginning about food safety and public health. The Mercosur deal is at the core of this but it is broader than that. We have an issue across Europe in that we are importing a lot of product from different parts of the world. In particular, the question about grain earlier was interesting because a lot of feed comes into the country from tropical climates. A situation could happen in the future - it is one of the things we need to be vigilant about - where we could bring in a parasite, or whatever it is, that causes a problem for our native species of grain or other products. That is one example. There are a lot of other examples of it.”
“The reason I asked the question in this context is that I was afraid if I tabled it to the Minister as a trade question, I would be told it should go to the Minister with responsibility for trade. This is why I asked it in the context I did, as the Minister will understand. The Minister mentioned the programme for Government and working with like-minded countries. There are already at least three, and maybe more, like-minded countries that are prepared to form a blocking minority. Is Ireland prepared to be part of that and to block the trade deal, not only to be there to stand firm for Irish farmers but also for European consumers faced with the huge negative health consequences of importing very dangerous product into the European Union, which is produced using products that are banned in the European Union?”
“There is a great deal of evidence, and not only from what has been uncovered by the Irish Farmers' Journal and the IFA. For a long time, it has been widely known there is no traceability, there is widespread mass vaccination of animals in these countries, and there is no way they can possibly meet the same standards that European consumers expect for their food. In this context, will the Minister ensure the Irish Government blocks the trade agreement at the European Council meeting and forms a minority there to do so? France is already interested in doing this, as is Poland. I understand that Hungary announced this morning it will do so. If Ireland is on board with this, we are very close to a position where we can block this agreement.”
“I thank the Minister. I am aware there are very small amounts of Brazilian beef coming into Ireland, of course, but quite large amounts are coming into the European Union as a whole. As the Minister said, the standards we expect Irish and European farmers to meet are not being met by the Mercosur countries, in particular Brazil, in respect of beef. We also have a problem with chicken and other products. To focus specifically on the beef issue, the reality is that Irish farmers and Irish consumers will be put at risk if we have a food safety issue whereby the beef and products coming in from these countries are not to the same standards and are using hormones, pesticides and antibiotics that are banned in the European Union.”
“As the Minister is aware, there is great concern about the Mercosur trade agreement. Even before it comes into place, tens of thousands of tonnes of Brazilian beef are being imported into the European Union. Much of this beef has been produced using hormones and antibiotics that are banned in the European Union and in Ireland. The Irish Farmers' Journal and the Irish Farmers Association did great work going out there to investigate this and they have reported on it. Have we done similar investigations in Ireland into beef that has been coming into this State from Brazil and other Mercosur countries and the levels of antibiotics and hormones that are used?”
“The Indecon report that has come out points to some of the direction that needs to go in. There also needs to be an examination of those who work in the industry. A lot of them are sometimes people who come from abroad to Ireland. They are international workers who come here to work in the industry. How they are treated, looked after, properly remunerated and all of that also needs to be brought into sharp focus. We do not want anything to throw a shadow over any industry in this country. Certainly, this industry is one we need to ensure we have the maximum amount of responsibility around because of the very large amount of public funding that goes toward it.”
“We need to ensure the Minister funds that and the recommendation that a certain amount of the funds be ring-faced for that is actually put in place. It was raised, legitimately enough, that quite a lot of money is being spent on care centres for greyhounds. When we look at the number of dogs that are rehomed and compare the cost of it, it seems a very high price is being paid for a small number of dogs to be rehomed. That is something the Minister should look at or examine. We certainly do not want an accusation coming out that somebody, somewhere, is using the system for their benefit rather than the benefit of dogs and the welfare of animals. One of the criticisms there has been in the past is that this has happened. We have improved a lot in the last number of years. There is still a distance to go.”
“It was mentioned that these are rural pursuits, but they are very much urban pursuits, particularly the greyhound part of it. A lot of people in a lot of towns are involved in greyhounds and all of that. There will be the very odd time, and isolated incident, where people will not be good to their animals. Where cruelty or neglect is involved, or any of these things happen, we need to ensure there is absolute full adherence and the full rigours of the law are brought to bear in respect of that because it brings an entire set of people into disrepute. We need to ensure that is done, which is why we need the recommendations of the report on the welfare of animals, particularly in the greyhound sector.”
“We also have to recognise the people who work in the industry at every level of it, from those mucking out the stables, riding out the horses and doing all that work, to the breeders and everyone involved in the horse racing industry, all of whom have a great love of their animals. They have not just a tradition but a sense, including in my own family going way back, who were people who had horses and used to say this, that the horse is in the person. That was the type of connection that was there. We have a similar thing in the greyhound industry. I know many people in that industry who breed greyhounds and are part of that. They have a great love and affection for their animals, and want to work with them and be part of it.”
“One of the other recommendations that a lot of people would have an issue with, and some raised eyebrows about, relates to the amount of money that goes towards prize funds. Naturally enough, we see many of those, when we look at the very big horse races in particular. Those who walk around the ring having won the prize funds are the very wealthiest and most elite in our society. There needs to be a certain balance there. That needs to be said. However, we also recognise that the Irish horse is renowned throughout the world. We have an industry that brings great credit to the people who are part of that industry, work so hard in it and deliver so much for it. The huge investment, time and effort that goes into that needs to be rewarded and recognised.”
“As we know, each year we go through this process for the horse and greyhound industry to get this very large amount of public funding. It is a large amount of public funding and we have to place it in the context of the situation in the country. Every day, we come in here and talk about our hospitals, health services and education system, and places where we have resource difficulties and not enough money in place to deal with them, yet, we have this large amount of money going to these two industries. That is why it is so important we have proper governance in place. Everyone recognises that. The Minister mentioned the Indecon report into the industry, which has a number of recommendations. Those recommendations are very important, particularly when it comes to the welfare of animals.”
“I know Sláintecare was supposed to do that, but it has not delivered. There needs to be a re-examination of what we are going to do to get a proper health system in place that provides adequate services for all of our citizens.”
“Many health workers will talk about the experience of working abroad being good. In general, when they go to other countries, they find that where there is meant to be three or four nurses and a number of care assistants in a ward, there is half that number in the Irish ward looking after patients. That creates huge strain because if a couple of people happen to need urgent care or are sick at the same time in those circumstances, they do not have the ability to look after them. They feel under pressure, stressed and unappreciated in the system, and the system fails. That is the experience of so many. Having health insurance does not solve the problem for a lot of people. In fact, all it does is make them pay more and still get an inadequate service. There needs to be a full review of how our system works.”
“It has been my experience that the private system only wants to provide the easy parts. It wants to do the parts that are easily done, the clean-cut bits, such as the cataract that needs to be taken off, the hip or knee replacement and the stuff that is clean and easy. The harder part, the more complex cases, are put back into the public system again and the pressure is always on the public system to provide for it. We have a health system which is run by professional and competent people. My daughter is a nurse who works in the health service. I know the level of commitment the staff have. She experiences it among the people she works with. We find, however, that the system is somehow or other under strain and stress, mainly because there are not enough people to provide the service.”
“It is small wonder, therefore, that people feel the service is so poor in the public system that they need to get insurance to be able to have a service provided. Yet, when they have that insurance, the level of service they get is often not up to the standard they would expect in those circumstances. We have a two-tier health service and unfortunately it does not work for anyone. What we find is that people pay taxes all their lives in order to have a health service and then when they get ill, they have to take out their chequebook to pay for it. That should not be the case. There is a huge amount of work to be done to be able to provide the kind of service that people require. We recognise that the private system is withdrawing from the public system. That should happen as soon as possible.”
“In my constituency, Sligo University Hospital was recently described as one of the most overcrowded hospitals in the country. In fact, I was recently informed that the ambulance service at one stage got a notification not to bring patients to the hospital, such was the overcrowding in the accident and emergency department. It is the same all over the country. In one cases I had recently, a woman waited outside Sligo hospital in an ambulance for six hours because there was no space to bring her into the hospital. That ambulance came from south Leitrim. During the time the ambulance was waiting, there was no ambulance cover in the region. That is happening everywhere all over the place.”
“I am glad to speak on the Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2025. As we know, many people in the country, almost 50% of the population, have health insurance. This is high when we consider that almost 77% of the cost of healthcare is provided by the State. You would wonder why the imbalance is there. Many people feel they have no option other than to have health insurance, particularly as they get on in life. There is always the fear of ending up on a waiting list, particularly for a diagnosis. I know many people who are waiting to get scans, scopes or other services. They go to their GP, who writes a letter to the hospital and says they will get an appointment at some stage. They wait months and months. It turns into years. Then they get very ill and end up having to go to accident and emergency.”
“Government needs to support the industry to develop new efficiencies, particularly regarding carbon and moving away from diesel. Those are big costs that small businesses cannot afford unless they get support from Government. Government needs to step up to the plate when it comes to supporting small businesses across the country, particularly the haulage sector.”
“The portal for applying for visas is clogged up, slow and not delivering for people. There is huge frustration among many people in this sector who want to employ people and have workers prepared to do the work but when they try to bring them into the system, they find there are walls built in front of them. It would not cost anything to streamline all that and make it happen quickly, effectively and efficiently for people. Many workers do not want to stay in the sector because there are other employment opportunities. That creates its own difficulties. There are very long hours sometimes. There are many complications with regulations around moving in and out of different jurisdictions, particularly with the new tachograph instruments brought in recently.”
“More and more haulage companies are having trouble finding drivers and other staff. The training programmes outlined by the Minister are all well and good but do not deliver the levels of competent workers the sector needs or anything near it. Many of them have to try to get workers from abroad. I have dealt with many, even small hauliers, in my part of the country who bring people in from outside the European Union. A man last week told me he had brought somebody in from Zimbabwe as a driver. First they had to get the permit to get into the country. Then they had to deal with the licence exchange, and that can take weeks and weeks. Then they had to get a PPS number. The final thing they had to get was a visa to go to the Continent and the Schengen Area. There are huge delays in all these things.”
“It is good to be here to contribute to these statements on SMEs and, particularly, the road haulage sector. As has been said by many, the sector is the lifeblood of small industry and business across the country. Fleets of white vans deliver everything we know to shops around the country, from bread and milk right through. All those vans on the road mean jobs in every part of the country and they need support. All of them are under stress and strain with the spiralling costs of insurance and fuel, which are not being dealt with effectively by Government. Then we see ever-increasing tolls on the toll roads which they have no option but to use. For the transport sector, those toll increases are even higher than for people using their cars. We have serious problems getting staff to carry out these roles.”
“However, we fear it will not oppose the Mercosur trade deal with the heartfelt commitment that is needed to win this battle on behalf of the farmers in the Public Gallery, the thousands of farmers throughout the country and the hundreds of thousands of consumers in Europe that need this deal to be blocked. That is why we are here tonight. We are here to ensure that this Government is held to account. The Minister of State, Deputy Harkin, referred to the programme for Government. The programme for Government is no good if it does not deliver. The only way it will deliver is if the Minister, and we have a new Minister now with competency in the area of trade, Deputy McEntee, who will have to go out and work on this deal. I ask that we could meet the Minister.”
“We are also hearing that the Government will come in here and tell us one story but that when the officials go out to Europe, they put a different story to the Commission. That needs to change. That is the reality. People can deny that all they like, but we see it in the text of the Minister's speech. The Minister stated that the Government is concerned about the Mercosur trade deal and that it is looking at the text. It is very vague and irresponsible. We have to take this matter seriously. The only way we can do so is for all of us to work together. We welcome the fact the Government did not oppose our motion tonight.”
“I thank all the farmers from every corner of the country who came to the Public Gallery tonight in order to listen and pay attention to this debate. When the Gallery is full, people often play to it. We have plenty of play actors in here tonight. We are here on serious business, namely the Mercosur trade deal. As Deputy Fitzmaurice stated, the agriculture committee spoke with the Polish agriculture committee this evening. We are also speaking with the French agriculture committee and with committees in a number of other countries. We need to build alliances with like-minded countries. We are hearing on the grapevine that the Irish Government is not doing that to the level it needs to do it.”
“The deal is not going to change and in the next four weeks the Government must stand up for Irish farmers and reject the Mercosur trade deal. This deal can only be stopped if the Government engages with like-minded member states and forms a blocking minority at EU Council level.”
“We are trying to promote generational renewal in Irish agriculture but there is no point in incentivising young farmers to take over the farm on the one hand and pulling the rug out from under them on the other by supporting the Mercosur trade deal. Irish farmers cannot compete with cheap beef from South America that is substandard, with no traceability regulations and poor animal welfare standards, and produced at the cost of the environment. Irish farmers cannot be sacrificed for German cars to be sold in South America. The Government has neglected its responsibility when it comes to defending Irish farmers and has sat back. It has a wait and see approach to the Mercosur trade deal. Its response has always been that it is opposed to the deal in its current form. Well, negotiating is over.”
“There would have to be a decline of 10% in the EU market price to trigger the safeguards and there is a high legal threshold that requires proof that the decline in price is a consequence or result of imports from Mercosur. This safeguard is not preventative. It addresses harm only after it has been caused and does not fix the structural issues, including unequal production standards and environmental costs. If this deal is ratified, it will result in the loss of jobs in Irish agriculture and we will see further decline in the Irish suckler industry, which is already under huge strain. We have seen declining numbers in the suckler herd, particularly in the north west and along the western seaboard.”
“Ireland and the EU have the highest standards of animal welfare and food security in the world and this agreement weakens the EU's food safety checks and auditing powers, which will allow importation of products produced with banned pesticides, hormones and antibiotics. This increases the risk of unsafe agricultural products entering the EU market. This deal is disastrous for the environment. It is seen as incompatible with the EU's Paris Agreement commitments. It is expected to increase exports of deforestation-linked products such as beef and soya, driving the destruction of the Amazon and raising greenhouse gas emissions. The EU's attempt to appease member states that are opposed to this deal by proposing safeguards and a so-called handbrake clause does nothing to protect Irish or EU farmers.”
“The Minister can therefore imagine how cheaply Mercosur countries are producing this substandard beef when they can make profits like this selling beef at a 40% to 50% tariff. Under the Mercosur deal, 58,000 tonnes will have zero tariff and a further 99,000 tonnes will be at a 7.5% tariff. Anything over that will be up to 40% or 50%. There is no limit to the volume of beef that can come from Brazil into the European Union. There is simply a limit to how much will be tariff free or have a low tariff. That is what this deal does. The Minister and I are aware of the issues with South American beef. Animal welfare standards are considerably poorer than in Ireland and the rest of the EU and there is no traceability of cattle and no tagging of animals at all.”
“The threat to Irish agriculture is very real, especially to our suckler and beef industries and to our poultry sector, which is important and under huge pressure the moment, as the Minister will be aware, with the bird flu pandemic sweeping across the country, potentially causing huge harm. I am sure he is aware this deal is bad for Ireland as this has been reported over the years. As it currently stands, Mercosur beef is being imported into the EU. In total, approximately 105,000 tonnes of beef and 68,000 tonnes of frozen beef are being imported into the EU annually. Some 58,000 tonnes of this beef has a tariff of 20% on it at the moment under the Hilton quota. The rest has a tariff of between 40% and 50%.”
“The Mercosur trade deal is bad for Irish agriculture, European consumers and the global environment. It is a deal that has been spoken about for a long time. It has been negotiated between the EU and the Mercosur countries in Latin America for over 25 years. Those negotiations are now over. There are no more negotiations for this deal. The deal is the deal. It is done, or so we are told. It will be voted on in an EU Council meeting in the next few weeks. The final EU-Mercosur trade agreement has been widely criticised for harming Irish and EU farmers, undermining climate goals, potentially affecting public health and bypassing democratic scrutiny. This is a bad deal for Ireland and a bad deal for the EU.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann: recognises: — the threat posed to Irish agriculture, the environment and human rights by the proposed Mercosur Trade Agreement; — the benefits of Irish agriculture to the Irish economy and its importance to rural communities throughout the country; — that Irish farmers play a vital role as custodians of the land and promote biodiversity and work to protect the environment; — that Irish agricultural products is acknowledged for its high standards and is exported around the world; — the very high environmental standards that Irish and European Union (EU) goods are produced to and regulations that Irish and EU farmers must adhere to in relation to animal welfare standards traceability; — the need for sustainable and fair international trade agreements to develop new markets for Irish and EU products; — that tariff reduction can lead to positive outcomes for the public, when implemented in a fair and sustainable way; — the need for produce to be imported into the EU to adhere to the same environmental and animal welfare standards and traceability regulations as producers in Ireland and the EU must adhere too; and — the various agreements, declarations and frameworks which the Irish State is a signature to, including but not limited to the Rome Declaration on World Food Security, the Paris Agreement, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; notes with concern: — that the European Commission (EC) concluded negotiations with four Mercosur countries on 6th December, 2024 on the EU-Mercosur Partnership Agreement; — that on 3rd September, 2025, the EC split the EU-Mercosur Agreement into two separate proposals - meaning that national parliaments will have no say on the ratification of the interim Trade Agreement element of the Partnership Agreement; — the impact that importing 99,000 tonnes of beef and 180,000 tonnes of poultry into the EU will have on Irish and EU farmers; — that the Mercosur Agreement is at odds with EU and Irish domestic climate legislation and will lead to greater deforestation and environmental destruction in the Mercosur countries; — that the EU has delayed implementation of Regulation 2023/1115 on deforestation in part to aid the ratification of the Mercosur Trade Agreement; — that imported agricultural products from Mercosur countries are often produced using toxic chemicals that have been banned in the EU for decades, and a 2024 EU audit found that Brazil cannot reliably trace or guarantee hormone free beef, yet the Mercosur Agreement will allow exporters to self-certify compliance with EU standards; — that the Mercosur Trade Agreement will further incentivise human rights violations against indigenous peoples in the Mercosur countries and the theft of their land in order to obtain more land for cattle farming; — that the bilateral safeguard proposed by the EC only applies for a transitional period of 12 years and the apparent weakness of the mechanism when it comes to protecting farmers; — that the triggering mechanism for the bilateral safeguard does not apply to situations of risk to public health, environmental destruction or indigenous dispossession; — that the Mercosur Trade Agreement would undermine our food security objectives and threaten generational renewal; and — the lack of engagement by the Irish Government with other EU member states in relation to the threats that the Mercosur trade deal poses to Irish and EU farmers and the substantial environmental, human rights and public health risks that the Agreement poses; and calls on the Government to: — publicly reject the Mercosur Trade Agreement as it threatens the future of Irish agriculture and the Irish family farm and poses huge threats to the environment, public health and human rights; — mandate its representatives at Council level to vote against the Mercosur Trade Agreement at its meeting in December 2025; and — work with likeminded member states to form a blocking minority at Council level.”
“They must stop buying Russian oil and exert maximum sanctions to ensure Russia is brought to heel and to the negotiating table to work out a settlement that will give Ukraine back its territory and ensure a full and final peace settlement. There cannot be a settlement if Ukrainian representatives are outside the door. It is vital that they be part of it. I am glad to be here to address this issue. Ultimately, the Irish are very clear that they want to see peace everywhere in the world. They want the many Ukrainian friends they have made to have a happy and peaceful place to go back to.”