Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 3 May 2018

Vol. 968 No. 5

Leaders' Questions

Deputy Dara Calleary

It is eight days since the news of Vicky Phelan's case came into the public domain, eight days since her amazing courage and her determination to speak the truth alerted the country and thousands of women in Ireland to the dereliction of duty and responsibility which CervicalCheck and the HSE unleashed on her and her family and, possibly, thousands of others. In that eight days, there has been an enormous sense of worry, concern and anger throughout the country. Many women are petrified that they will be affected and they are trying to get answers and information. Despite this need for answers and information, there has been no sense of urgency in providing those answers or information.

Over these eight days we have learned that in the cases of at least 208 women who were diagnosed with cervical cancer, an original smear test had falsely given them the all-clear. Seventeen of those women have passed away, only two of whom were informed about the false positive before they passed. The remaining 15 women were not told and instructions were issued by somebody to note the false audit on their files but not to brief their families. Eight days on, there are still, we understand, another 38 of those 208 women who have yet to be informed about their smear tests being wrong. Why the delay in informing these 38 women? We now also know that there are potentially a further 1,500 women who have been diagnosed with cervical cancer over the past ten years, whose original smear test was not audited. This information was, apparently, only given to the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, last Tuesday evening, two weeks after the Department became aware of the gravity of this issue. Again, why the delay?

For many women the first point of contact to get the information was their general practitioner, GP. If they got an appointment with their GP, they found that CervicalCheck only formally contacted GPs this morning, eight days later, and it provided a completely innocuous update which provided no new information to the thousands of GPs who are struggling to deal with this issue. Again, why the delay? Many other women, more than 6,000 we are led to believe, have contacted the helpline yet many are still awaiting a call back from a health care professional. It was only last night, another week into this crisis, that the Minister allocated 40 nurses to deal with this backlog. Again, why the delay?

There is no sense being given to women of this country that somebody in Government or the HSE is in charge of this situation. There is no sense that somebody understands the trauma being experienced by women in terms of the lack of information and the concerns they and their families have.

I would like the Tánaiste to answer a number of questions to assist in alleviating this worry. When will the 38 women who have yet to be informed of their audit be informed? Will all of these women receive full medical support? I am aware of at least one of these women whose medical card was withdrawn in recent weeks by HSE medical cards, in respect of which she is being put through the wringer to provide information, yet she was able to get a telephone call recently to inform her of false positive. When will the families of the 15 deceased women be formally contacted to advise them that their loved one was the subject of false audit? When will the helpline callbacks be completed? When will women get the information that they are looking for from a healthcare professional?

The Taoiseach announced that women can have new smear tests undertaken, which is a welcome development. Will these smear tests be audited in a different laboratory from those that are being used to audit smear tests? Does the Tánaiste have confidence in the ability of the director general of the HSE to restore confidence in our cancer screening programme and does he agree that given the scale of the job to restore that confidence, the director general should step aside from every other interest in order that he can concentrate fully on that job?

This morning, Vicky Phelan called for the scoping inquiry agreed last evening to be held in public. Does the Government agree with her call?

The Tánaiste

The Deputy has asked a lot of questions and I will try to answer as many of them as I can. First, there is a real sense of anger and frustration within Government this week in regard to what has happened and how it happened. Irish women have been badly let down. Many feel very vulnerable and very angry about this. I had the opportunity this morning to speak to the husband of one of the 17 women who died. He is very angry, for which I do not blame him. He has been contacted by the HSE but he needs a more detailed meeting and I think that is happening this evening.

On the Deputy's question, this has been a disgraceful breach of trust between thousands of women and the State through the HSE in terms of the healthcare they rightly expect to be provided with. We are in the processing of resolving this issue. I thank the Opposition parties for their co-operation yesterday in particular working with the Minister for Health, who is determined to resolve this issue and to put in place a timetable and initial plan to do so.

As the Taoiseach has said, we want to do this correctly on the basis of knowing all the facts we can assemble before making decisions on how to proceed and to change and improve things fundamentally. Everybody agrees now that there needs to be a statutory inquiry into this issue. It needs to be as transparent and as public as possible. We need a scoping exercise to make sure we have a deeper understanding of the facts, what transpired, when, how and who was involved so we can put the appropriate terms of reference in place for the inquiry. It is to be hoped this can be completed by the end of next month. I assure Members, and everybody listening outside of this House, that the Government is determined, from the top down, to deal with this issue in a comprehensive way based on all the facts as they become assembled. In the meantime we will see, I hope, a real sense of urgency from the HSE in reaching out to the women who have been directly involved, and their families, so we can do this in a professional and compassionate way and provide as much information as we can to provide an explanation as to why it will take a little bit longer to provide full facts and information, which will be a basis for making appropriate changes to ensure this never happens again.

Of the 208 women, I understand that 172 women and families have been informed and contacted by the HSE. There may be reasons it is difficult to contact the other women. They may have moved or are no longer resident in Ireland. Efforts are very much under way to make sure all the women are contacted as soon as possible.

With regard to providing medical supports and reassurance, of course the State wants to do that. We have made it clear that any woman who wants to have a repeat smear test for reassurance, or for any other reason, can do so without delay. The State will, of course, pay for that.

The Minister for Health, the Taoiseach and the Government want to listen to the concerns of patients in particular, but also to the concerns of the Opposition parties on this issue so we can collectively get this right, so we can learn lessons from a situation that should not have happened and so we can put new structures in place to ensure it does not happen again in the future.

Deputy Dara Calleary

We all have that sense of urgency. An immediate response is needed to assist our primary care professions in dealing with the trauma being felt by many women. That has not yet been provided and it needs to be provided. I welcome the Tánaiste's commitment on the public nature of the scoping exercise. It is important, to use Vicky Phelan's words, that the "closed doors" are not used anymore and that this is done in public and in the open.

I will ask the Tánaiste about comments made by the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach to Deputy Marc MacSharry about the sensitive cases. Was the Government alerted to this case some months ago in the context of a sensitive cases update? Will the Tánaiste confirm the position of the director general of the HSE? What is the Tánaiste's current understanding of his position?

The Tánaiste

Having spoken with the Minister for Health, and it is also breaking in the media now, Tony O'Brien has confirmed to the Minister that he will take a leave of absence from any involvement outside the HSE between now and when he steps down from the HSE so he can focus on contributing in a positive manner to the work that needs to be done to put this right. This is the appropriate course of action and the decision for him to make.

On the list of sensitive legal cases that is presented to Cabinet from time to time, we asked the Secretary General to look at the list of sensitive cases that had been on the list. Vicky Phelan's case was not on the sensitive cases list. This information has just been given to me on my way in to House today. I understand this is the confirmation that the Secretary General to the Government has provided.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

I will repeat for the Tánaiste the words of Emma Mhic Mhathúna from Baile na nGall in County Kerry on the "Six One News" yesterday. The Tánaiste will be aware that Emma was diagnosed with cervical cancer in late 2016. Three years earlier she had been given the all clear following a smear test. Emma was told this week that she is one of the women who has been affected by the CervicalCheck scandal. When asked if people should be held accountable she said:

Yes, they have to be. This is not one of those things where an apology, money or the reformation of CervicalCheck or bringing in a new test for HPV earlier on [is enough].

Her words speak volumes. She is a remarkably courageous woman and I extend our support to her and her family at this unbelievably difficult time in her life. Does the Tánaiste agree with her words that this is about accountability and information?

Yesterday, representatives of the HSE addressed the Oireachtas Committee on Health for five hours. Instead of someone - anyone of them - taking responsibility for this terrible scandal, we saw five hours of passing the buck. The head of the HSE Tony O’Brien said, “as the head of the HSE, I have to recognise that those who cocked-up, to use the Taoiseach's phrase, were in the organisation but I did not personally make that cock-up so I cannot take full responsibility for it”.

That is an absolute disgrace. One can delegate authority, but one cannot delegate responsibility. Either someone is held to account or the usual pattern of unaccountability will continue year after year, scandal after scandal. I put it to the Tánaiste that this simply cannot happen.

Women, some of whom are now cancer patients, or dead or dying, were denied information about their health because of the failings of those responsible in our health service. One week into this scandal and we still do not even know how many women are affected. The buck stops with someone. That person is Tony O’Brien who oversees the HSE. The media this morning has reported that Tony O'Brien has taken a temporary leave of absence from the board to which he was appointed in the United States of America. This does not go far enough. It just reiterates and confirms our view of the inappropriateness of the Minister for Health sanctioning Tony O'Brien's participation on that board when there was a clear conflict of interest in the first place.

The women of Ireland deserve answers, but they also deserve accountability. That is what the women involved are calling for. This morning, Vicky Phelan said, “Heads absolutely need to roll, in particular Tony O'Brien's, who has shown nothing but arrogance and who is more concerned with defending the indefensible than doing the right thing." She is absolutely right. My party leader, Mary Lou McDonald, put this question to the Taoiseach on Tuesday and again yesterday. Perhaps the Tánaiste will lead where the Taoiseach will not. Will the Tánaiste call for the resignation of Tony O’Brien, or like the Taoiseach, does the Tánaiste express full confidence in Mr. O'Brien?

The Tánaiste

This is about accountability and providing full information. It is about responding comprehensively to the fact that there was a disgraceful breach of trust and that women were denied information they should have had. Yesterday, Tony O'Brien apologised for that happening. Some days ago the clinical director of CervicalCheck stepped down. We have also seen the senior official in charge of CervicalCheck move aside and a new team, the serious incident management team, move in to take over CervicalCheck. We are now in the process of trying to establish all the facts. In my judgment, while we do that we need to ensure the appropriate management structures in the HSE are best placed to provide information and facts to the Minister and to an independent inquiry when it is set up.

The truth is that Tony O'Brien has less than 12 weeks left in his contract. From what he said yesterday, he wants to focus in that time on being as helpful and constructive as he can be in establishing the facts here for the benefit of everybody. That is what we are trying to do. Rather than looking for heads, we are trying to look for the truth, establish the facts and, in doing that, in time, we need to hold people to account regarding their own role in the decisions that were made which led to this breach of trust. We should make that judgment when we have all the facts available rather than doing that in a way that would give the impression of immediate accountability because the person at the top would be standing aside. We have an obligation to ensure that we establish the truth and facts. Tony O'Brien's focus on providing as much information as possible and putting systems in place that can co-operate fully with that independent investigation is probably the best way that he can assist in this process, rather than stepping aside from it.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

The Tánaiste and Government know that we will work with the Government and Minister to ensure that there is a full public inquiry into this scandal which is conducted without delay. We can only hope that this will bring some clarity to the women affected in this scandal. The Tánaiste knows that it was agreed that the women's voices need to be heard as part of that exercise. They also need to be heard with regard to accountability. Vicky Phelan made it clear this morning that Tony O'Brien should go. That does not preclude him from taking part in that investigation and giving all the information that he has about how this scandal unfolded. We do not need an inquiry to inform us that women with cervical cancer were denied critical information about their healthcare. We do not need an inquiry to know that 15 women went to their graves without that information. This is so serious. We do not need an inquiry to know that senior officials in the health service denied these women, and many others like them, this critical information. We do not need an inquiry to know that this happened on the watch of Tony O'Brien, director general of the HSE. We know all of that. We do not need an inquiry to know that the person who revealed this story, which none of us would be debating here today if it was not for her courage, is calling for Tony O'Brien to resign. The Tánaiste says that he wants to hear the women's voices. They are asking for accountability. There is a twin-track approach here. We need to make it clear that we cannot allow Tony O'Brien to walk off into the sunset in six weeks with his pension, going on to the board of his US company. There has to be accountability. This is so serious. People have died without the information they were entitled to. The person at the head of the organisation which denied them that information has to be held to account. Given that the Tánaiste is not willing to call for the resignation of Mr. O'Brien, does he express full confidence in Mr. O'Brien?

The Tánaiste

Nobody in this House is in any doubt as to how serious this situation is. I do not think any one party is any more outraged than any other. This is a disgraceful situation that should not have happened. We are now setting about and working with all of the other parties to put a comprehensive process in place that is transparent, open and will be reassuring to women who need that reassurance that we will understand fully how this happened, who was involved in the decision-making around the policy decisions that allowed this to happen, and people will be held to account in that context. In the meantime, we need a HSE that delivers to a Department of Health and, indeed, to a scoping process which will happen over the next six to eight weeks, and subsequently to a full investigation that will be put in place with, hopefully, the approval of everybody in this House. We will then get to the bottom of this as quickly as we can. In the meantime, we need to ensure that we build a new level of reassurance and confidence in the cancer screening processes in Ireland to ensure that the benefit we get from screening is maintained. Let nobody suggest here that there will not be full accountability with regard to who knew what and when. That is what we are trying to do now, in putting structures in place to make sure that is independently assessed by international experts who can provide the reassurance that we need. That is the approach that the Government wants to follow.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

I asked the Tánaiste twice if he expresses full confidence-----

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

An Teachta Bríd Smith. No, Deputy Doherty-----

Deputy Pearse Doherty

-----in Tony O'Brien to continue working as director general of the HSE. I deserve an answer. More importantly, the victims of this scandal deserve an answer.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I call Deputy Bríd Smith. Deputy Doherty cannot-----

The Tánaiste

Can I answer?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Very briefly.

The Tánaiste

I have said that it is the Government's judgment that Tony O'Brien can be the most use to the women of Ireland in establishing facts here if he focuses fully on trying to assist in the process that the-----

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

That is not an answer.

The Tánaiste

-----Government puts together between now and when he leaves the HSE in a few weeks.

Deputy Bríd Smith

The Tánaiste has said this is about accountability and a breach of trust. I argue that it is also about the privatisation of women's healthcare. When we delve into the inquiry that is promised, we have to look at how outsourcing since 2008 has impacted the results of screening and led to women dying as a consequence. It has also led to an award by a private company to Vicky Phelan. Why else would it pay her off, if it was not guilty? We have also asked for a breakdown of the final 208 false tests to show what clinics they came from. I want to preface what I will say by saying to every woman that we must stick with the programme of screening under CervicalCheck. It is really important that women stick with that programme. I am not playing politics when I make this point. We found out yesterday that the State Claims Agency received a request for Ms Phelan's files in January. The head of the national screening programme knew in March that a claim was going to court. He kicked it up the line to the head of national screening who it kicked up the line to the Department, which knew in March. The Minister did not know.

I will make it simple for everybody here. I have a diagram of the transitional organisation structure of the HSE here and I have coloured the Minister in in blue to match the colour of his shirt. The risk committee is answerable to the Minister. The director general, Tony O'Brien, is answerable to the Minister. None of them told the Minister, even though he is the boss. He is at the head of all of this. None of them told him but none of them has been fired or suspended. Going right down the line to where the information first came in, nobody is in trouble for this. I know a young hospital worker who was suspended for two months because she criticised HSE spending and the trolley crisis in a Facebook post. The Minister has to make heads roll in that Department for failing to tell him and failing to be accountable. If he does not, he should go because somebody has to go here. I do not believe the Minister that he did not know. I do not believe Tony O'Brien and I do not believe that the Minister's Department is not full of people who are trying to cover this up. If the Minister believes that they are not trying to cover this up, that they are all innocent and they are all okay, then he is failing to do his job. The Minister at the head of the organisation. The fish rots from the head and the Minister needs to deal with it or else he needs to resign.

The Tánaiste

We all have to work together to get to the bottom of this-----

Deputy Simon Harris

She has no interest in that.

The Tánaiste

-----and reassure women across the country.

Deputy Bríd Smith

Just do that.

The Tánaiste

I welcome the first thing the Deputy said about encouraging people to continue to believe in and to use the screening systems. We are reaching out to Opposition spokespeople, as the Minister did yesterday. My understanding is that Deputy Bríd Smith is the only person who did not agree with the way forward that has been charted from yesterday and that is her right. We are listening to other perspectives here to try to reach consensus on the most appropriate way forward. I do not think it is credible to suggest that the Minister knew about this before it was public. He has responded in a way that has put multiple changes in place immediately as well as putting a huge sense of energy and urgency into the system to try to establish facts.

He has been frustrated in those efforts, which has been hugely difficult to manage from a political perspective but, as he stated, his problems are not the issue here. Rather, the issue is the problems facing families and women which we must and will put right.

People will be held to account but first we must establish the full facts. This is not a matter on which we should shoot first and ask questions later. We should publicly establish an understanding of how this happened and whether it was a cock-up, as the Taoiseach said yesterday, or some kind of conspiracy, which I doubt. Until the full facts have been independently ascertained, we should be careful in what we say and who we blame. Natural justice should not be set aside because of people's understandable anger and anxiety.

As regards the outsourcing of testing, cervical smear tests are currently carried out by three institutions: Quest Diagnostics in New Jersey in the United States; MedLab Pathology Limited, which is a US company based in Dublin, although the testing takes place in a lab in the US; and the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital, Dublin. As the Taoiseach confirmed yesterday and on Tuesday, 50% of the testing is done in Ireland and 50% abroad. We have no reason to believe that the number of false negatives or false positives differ to any significant degree between the laboratories, but that will have to be established by a new independent inquiry to decide if the decision to outsource was a mistake. Some people believe it was, while others believe it was not.

We must not make judgments on these issues in the face of the emotion of this debate but rather on the basis of the facts as they are put together over time. That is how we should approach this to protect women.

Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin

We should have done that ten years ago.

Deputy Bríd Smith

We know many things in advance of an inquiry starting. We know that Clinical Pathology Laboratories, CPL, tried to gag Vicky Phelan but she would not acquiesce. CPL is the sister company of MedLab in Sandyford and we are still using it to screen women's cervical tests. Even if we accept the bona fides of the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, in regard to not knowing about this issue, there is still a problem because the chief medical officer and the Department knew about it but did not tell him. As I have pointed out, he is at the head of the food chain. He is the fish with the rotting head and must do something about this issue.

The Tánaiste mentioned natural justice. In any industrial relations or investigative circumstance there are suspensions from the time an investigation begins. People are suspended while the investigation takes place. This matter cannot be properly investigated while those in the Department who did not tell the Minister are in situ. It is against natural justice to allow that. If the Minister, the Tánaiste or the Taoiseach do not oversee such suspensions, they will be complicit in this scandal. Heads must roll. I plead with the Minister to discipline those who failed to tell him. If he does not, he should resign. It is not credible for him to stand over such a situation while some young women in hospitals are suspended for posts on Facebook. Why is a Department official not being suspended for failing to tell the Minister?

The Tánaiste

Those in charge of CervicalCheck have been moved aside. It now has a new management team on the instruction of the Minister. The management team-----

Deputy Bríd Smith

It is not part of the Department.

The Tánaiste

I ask the Deputy to listen to the answer. The management team reports on a daily basis to the director of the HSE, who now reports daily to the Minister in regard to progress on this issue. The Minister is taking a hands-on approach to progressing the issue properly.

As regards a lack of information, much of the information given to the House by the Minister as matters unfolded over the past week or so was gathered last weekend by audit teams sent into hospitals by the Minister to go through files to ensure we have a clear understanding of the numbers involved and so on. Contact has been made with women and families who should have had information far earlier but did not get it. It is likely to be a case of advisers to the Minister not having had the information, rather than it being withheld from him. We must consider how a management system within the HSE allowed that to happen.

Deputy Bríd Smith

The Department yesterday stated it had the information in March.

The Tánaiste

That is why if what the Deputy stated is correct------

Deputy Bríd Smith

I am not making it up.

The Tánaiste

------it will be confirmed by an independent statutory inquiry and we will be able to make informed choices and learn lessons on that basis to put new systems in place to ensure there is no repeat of the events of the past seven days.

Deputy Michael Harty

I have chosen to speak on a different subject even though yesterday we had a very lengthy meeting of the Joint Committee on Health on the issue of cervical screening which revealed some very valuable information.

The European Commission yesterday stated that the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, budget is to be reduced by 5% and payments to farm families may be reduced by up to 4%. This bad news for Ireland was outlined yesterday at the unveiling of the multi-annual financial framework, which will run from 2021 to 2027. Does the Tánaiste share my concerns about these potentially disastrous proposals for Irish agriculture, in particular for small to medium-sized farms? This will be the first budget after the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, which departure will leave a gap of €12 billion in the European budget.

The Government must come clean on the future of Irish farming supports. There are serious issues coming down the line which will impact on Irish farm families. Farmers have been worried for some time and now have more reason to be worried that the CAP reduction will kick in from 2021. It is clear that the Commission does not believe that the remaining 27 members of the EU will make up the budget shortfall after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union. Member states are being asked to increase their contribution by a very modest amount, but we do not know if they will do so. Commissioner Oettinger expects the cuts to be between 5% and 10%.

The proposed budget cuts have been well flagged. In response to a parliamentary question I submitted, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed, stated that there are many challenges facing the CAP and the budget after 2020 but he hopes they will be addressed and farm supports maintained. That was clarified in no uncertain terms by the European Commissioner, Phil Hogan, who recently stated in Kilkenny that there will be a €12 billion deficit in the EU budget. He could not have been clearer in stating to farmers in Kilkenny that there will be a cut to the budget if member states do not contribute more money. Addressing the European Commission in January 2018, the Taoiseach indicated that Ireland will only make an enlarged contribution to the budget if the spend is on policies that contribute to the advancement of European ideals.

The only upside is that it will be two years before the budget is renegotiated, which gives the Government, MEPs and the Commissioner for Agriculture time to sort out this problem. That might be an impossible task. One of the biggest criticisms of CAP is that 80% of the budget goes to 20% of the farmers, so I welcome the commitment to supports for smaller farmers. In spite of that, we face a situation whereby farmers will have to move from expecting more to doing with less, which is a frightening challenge. Nevertheless, we must know how the Government proposes to manage this crisis.

The Tánaiste

I suspect we will debate the CAP budget issue on many occasions in the House between now and the decisions being finalised. The Commission has set out its opening position, which recognises that in the absence of member states being willing to increase their contributions, there will be a €12 billion reduction in the EU budget because of Brexit.

In that context, the priority is the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, through which approximately 80% of EU funds come into Ireland. It is a huge support across rural Ireland, with which people will be more than familiar. This round of CAP funding will deliver approximately €12 billion of EU funds into the rural economy. I am familiar with the preparations for the CAP negotiations because when the last round of CAP funding was finalised, I was Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Ireland chaired the Council of Ministers at the time. Therefore, I know that the Commission's proposal is just the start of the process.

I recognise the work Commissioner Phil Hogan has done in this area. Many were predicting a much higher initial proposed reduction under the CAP. Commissioner Hogan has done a very good job in limiting the initial damage, but there is a lot of work for us still to do to ensure there will be no reductions in supports available to Irish farmers in the future. However, much of what he said yesterday was welcome, apart from the actual funding that may be available. He focused on small to medium-sized farmers. That will continue the work that has begun on the equalisation process of payments that began in the current round of CAP funding. He also talked about facilitating a new crisis reserve fund, which would be hugely welcome. He talked about an increased focus on the environment and the climate and building on the greening of the CAP which is very much under way.

There are positives in what was announced yesterday, but there is work to be done to ensure member states will examine ways in which they can contribute increased amounts to the overall EU budget to compensate for the fact that, without Britain, we will have a smaller amount of money to spend in all areas at a time when the demand for expenditure from EU budgets is increasing in a number of new areas, from migration to security and so on.

From an Irish perspective, I want to be very clear. The CAP is a huge priority for us in the context of the multiannual financial framework, MFF. The support of Irish farmers will always be a big priority in the context of a future MFF. We will work with Commissioner Hogan who I believe has done a very good job in the context of the starting point of the negotiations to ensure we will protect the incomes of farmers.

Deputy Michael Harty

I thank the Tánaiste. In addition to the difficulties a reduced CAP budget would present for Irish farmers, we have other issues coming down the line, including Brexit, for instance. We know that the Brexit negotiations are pretty much deadlocked. That will have a huge impact on farming if they are not successful and if there is to be a hard Brexit. Not only would it reduce farmers' incomes but it would also reduce their capacity to move between the North and the South with their farm produce and from east to west in bringing their products to continental Europe with reference to the tariffs that would be imposed on them. Also, Mercosur is a huge threat to Irish farmers in that if the deal goes ahead, cheap beef will come in from South America into the European market and impact on the price of Irish beef for Irish farmers. Vulture funds are beginning to circle over Irish farms. Banks are selling loans of Irish farms to vulture funds. It will have a huge impact on farming if these loans are sold to vulture funds. The Irish Farmers' Association needs to step up to the mark and support farmers on that issue.

The Tánaiste

I thank the Deputy who has referred to a number of threats to Irish farmers, but there is also a good news story for Irish agriculture. We are seeing Irish beef entering the Chinese market after years of laying the foundations. We have seen a series of new trade deals signed up to by the European Union that are very positive for Irish agriculture. For example, the opportunities for the dairy industry in Mexico are significant. The opportunities in Canada and Japan are also significant. The Chinese market will play a significant and increasing role for the Irish beef industry in seeking new markets. Many good things are happening, but, as always in agriculture which is such a huge part of the economy, there are threats to which we need to respond as a Government in a comprehensive way.

On Brexit, agriculture and the agrifood industry are big parts of our bilateral discussions with the United Kingdom - I am travelling to London this afternoon - and also our work through the Barnier task force. Mr. Barnier was in Ireland on Monday and Northern Ireland on Tuesday. Much of his focus was on agrifood in the context of maintaining and supporting a functioning all-island economy, as well as a future close relationship between Ireland and the United Kingdom, particularly in sensitive sectors such as agriculture.