I submit that Commissioner MacSharry has interfered with the Common Agricultural Policy. That is ironic given his advice to us to leave the Community if such interference occurred.
We must remember that all the fear about this package was generated by Commissioner MacSharry although it was he who put forward the proposals. I am afraid therefore that I cannot agree with the self-congratulatory comments made by the Minister that he used his influence to have the proposals modified because if one reads any journal published outside this country or indeed many of those published here in relation to the progress made during the negotiations, one will find that it was the French, the Spanish, the Germans and others who exerted most influence on Commissioner MacSharry to modify his extreme proposals which would have led to the agriculture industry being almost dismantled as a major component of our economy. I am sorry that the Minister is not in the House to hear me say this but he should not make self-congratulatory comments or accept all these congratulations for the changes which were by no means all his own doing. While I agree that he exerted some influence, I submit that this led to some very minor changes.
The Minister has acknowledged that there will be a cut of 15 per cent in the intervention price for beef over the next number of years but he failed to tell us that there will also be a significant reduction in the volume of beef allowed into intervention. It will be halved in the four year period 1993 to 1997 — from a figure of 750,000 tonnes in 1993 to 350,000 tonnes in 1997. I submit that this will depress the price of beef but this has not been acknowledged. All the experts agree that when the increased subsidies, the price reduction and market conditions — and one can accurately predict what these will be over the next three or four years — are taken into account beef farmers will only be compensated for 75 per cent of their losses. That will put an additional strain on that sector of agriculture.
According to a recent NESC report, 36 per cent of farmers are at risk of poverty. This was confirmed by the Conference of Major Religious Superiors in their pre-budget submissions over the last three years. The farmers most affected are dry stock farmers and farmers in the west. These farmers find that their economic status and wellbeing are under attack. A small farmer in the west is twice as likely to be poor as any self-employed person and six times more likely to be poor than any employed person. We have heard laudatory and glowing comments about what the new reformed Common Agricultural Policy will do for this country, but these are the facts.
The Minister also conveniently forgot to mention that heifers make up 20 per cent of the beef produced in Ireland and that all these subsidies will be payable in respect of male animals. Indeed the figure is higher than 20 per cent in certain parts of the area I come from. Does this not amount to a betrayal?
The Minister mentioned, again in a self-congratulatory way, that there will be no quotas this year. However, next year the market balance will be looked at strictly and if it is out of joint by even the smallest amount, quotas will be the answer according to Commissioner MacSharry. Therefore we need not congratulate ourselves.
It is also a great pity that Ireland will receive only a small portion of the total budget devoted to the Common Agricultural Policy, about 27 billion ECUs in the current year; this figure will rise in the coming years, probably as high as 34 billion ECUs by about 1995 and then start to dip fairly sharply.
In relation to reorientation — the buzz word used by the Minister tonight — this means that funding will be reoriented from the major producers, who were able to avail of guaranteed prices, towards small producers but the amount of money that will be available under this heading is absolutely ridiculous. At present grants are available for alternative farming, deer farming, agri-tourism etc. However a circular, No. 26 of 1992, on the grant aid available for alternative enterprises was issued by the Minister's Department on 16 May, which said to all the staff operating it that "due to the budgetary position, it is now decided to suspend all these schemes." Is not that a scandal, that this range of schemes which were meant to last from 1989 to 1993 are the subject of cancellation in the first half of 1992 on the part of the Minister for Agriculture and Food because he simply failed to negotiate enough money to fund them to the end of their term? I submit that that is a disgrace and a scandal.
