I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
Farming in this country is in crisis at the moment. I do not make that statement lightly. The recent report by Teagasc confirms that farm income levels have fallen across the State in the Past year. Dairy incomes averaged €49,000 last year, which was a decrease of an incredible 69% compared with 2022. Tillage farm income fell by 71% last year, a phenomenal fall, and now it is coming in at just €21,000. Dry stock incomes fell also in 2023. The average income for a cattle farm at the moment fell by 14% to €12,600. The income of sheep farmers fell by 22%. The average income for a sheep farmer in the State is €12,500. Across all farm types, the average income has dropped by 57%. That is an incredible figure. The average income for farmers in this State is €20,000 - a massive and stunning fall. All of that is before we even mention the increase in input costs that have happened in the past while.
Because of those income falls, every year we see more and more farmers leave the sector. If this was happening in any other sector in Ireland, it would be front-page news. It would be on the television regularly and would be consuming the debate space in this Chamber that a sector's income would fall so significantly. It is practically invisible, however, in the debates that are taking place currently. It shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that, in the main, farming is not a sustainable way of life for people in Ireland.
According to Teagasc, a third of farmers are making a loss. Many of them are going into debt and poverty. Another third of farmers are only making an income and a living because they are working off the farm. They are working in a second job to supplement their income. Only a third of farmers in the whole sector make enough from their farm to make a living.
That is an incredible situation for a number of reasons. First, it is an incredible situation for the families themselves to be driven into such income poverty in their own lives. It is also an incredible situation because it is a really important sector, the one that produces the foods that are the backbone of the rural community. That is leading to a situation where rural communities are collapsing. Even for those who have no interest in farmers and do not care about rural Ireland, it is a very important issue, because if there are no farmers, there is no food, and if there is no food, there is no future.
Food security is a very important issue and has become more important in recent years than ever before. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has affected supply chains, leading to certain products not being available. That has also created significant inflation. Covid saw the shutdown of supply chains, which again took products out of the Irish market and led to massive inflation. The Suez Canal blockage in that period also led to supply chains falling down, products not being available and inflation. There have been serious attacks on supply chains across the world in recent years. We need to take food security seriously.
The damage being done to farmers is affecting rural Ireland. If the family farm dies, so too does rural Ireland. Feed lots and industrial farms may keep production up but will not send kids to school, purchase products in local shops, play for the local football teams or socialise in the local pubs.
It might appear from what I have said that there is no money in food; there is massive money in food. There are billions of euro in the food market in this country. The problem is that money is landing on two elements of the supply chain and not on the third. The supply chain for food in this country consists of farmers, who do most of the work, usually a processor of some sort and usually a supermarket.
There is massive profitability but that profit is landing in the factories and supermarkets and not with the farmer who does most of the work.
If one looks at the food processors, they are incredibly profitable at present but I can tell you they are also very good at hiding their profits. The company of one such food processor, and I will not mention his name, had an income of €4 billion in 2022. The profits it generated are estimated at €200 million and the taxes were paid through a network of smaller holding companies in Britain, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Jersey. It is estimated that the individual paid a tax of approximately 2%. That is an incredible situation. This individual had a profit of €200 million and a tax of 2% while at the same time and up until very recently, was expecting farmers to provide beef to the factory gate below the cost of production. That is the key element of this Aontú Bill. We want to focus on trying to make farmers and the family farm viable and sustainable.
The other element of the supply chain is the supermarkets, which make enormous profits too. Tesco made a profit of €2 million every single day last year. SuperValu had profits of approximately €100 million last year, while Aldi made a profit of €17 million. It is impossible to find out what the profits were for other companies because they hold those cards so close to their chests. What is happening here is we have an oligopoly. Anybody who has studied leaving certificate economics will tell you that an oligopoly is where you have a small number of firms operating with a perfect competition. The small number of firms have enormous buyer power and can control all aspects of the market. In a normal economy, there would be a strong competition authority and that competition authority would prevent the abuse of power that is provided by that particular oligopoly. In a normal economy, that competition authority would stop the oligopoly from appearing in the first place by disallowing the concentration of power in such few hands but of course, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have never done that in this country.
The truth is we need to create a more balanced and competitive structure within the Irish system. In reality, we need a strong competition authority to do that but we do not have one as of yet or at least we have not seen any examples of a competition authority exerting its influence on this sector so we must rebalance the situation. The Aontú Equitable Beef Pricing Bill will, if enacted, first and foremost ban the below-cost-of-sale beef. It will ensure that from now on, farmers would receive, at least, the cost of production price for their beef so they would not be in a situation where they were forced to bring a beast to the factory at a loss each time.
There will be many people listening to this debate who will be surprised below-cost selling of beef in this country exists but it is the truth and not just in the beef sector but right through the whole agricultural sector such as, for example, in poultry, sheep and pigs. It regularly happens that farmers are forced to provide product below the cost of production because factories and supermarkets are squeezing farmers every single day in respect of keeping prices lower and lower. That is what our Bill seeks to do, namely, to put a floor under farmers' incomes and the price of beef. If people ask what the cost of production price of beef is, we will simply say in our Bill that Teagasc should be the organisation to decide. People will disagree with this and that is fine, but at least we have an independent organisation of some sort focusing on what the price of beef is in this context.
There is an exploitative element of the structure of the food market that would not be allowed in any other sector. I will give the Minister of State an example. Imagine if a person said to the Minister of State that he or she wanted him to work 70 hours per week in terms of Bills, clinics and representing citizens for a wage less than the cost it takes him to do the job. The Minister of State would tell that person to get stuffed and rightly so. Everybody here would say get stuffed. Almost every profession in the country would say get stuffed and yet that is the exact system in place for the food sector. How has it been it allowed to continue so long?
I have raised this issue for the past six years. When the 2020 strikes happened outside the factories, I went to almost every protest and spoke to farmers on that. I was selected by some farmers to be their representative with the Government during those negotiations. I even represented some farmers in the High Court who had injunction orders placed against them to stop them protesting outside of those factories. I raised this in the previous agricultural committee at the time, when a Fine Gael TD was the Chair of that committee. At the time he said it would be unreasonable for farmers to expect a price above the cost of production, which is an incredible statement for anybody to make. Shockingly, there was another TD there who is now the Minister for agriculture, Deputy McConalogue, who agreed with the Fine Gael Chair and said it would be unreasonable for farmers to expect a price above the cost of production. That is absolutely disgraceful and wrong. We need to get to a situation where we have a proper functioning market. I am not talking about fixing a market in a manner that does not allow that market to function. I am looking to reform the market to allow it to properly function in a balanced and proper way. The Aontú Bill simply states that a person acting in the course of business shall not purchase beef from a farmer at a price below the minimum amount for the time prescribed by ministerial order. That ministerial order will be based upon the price decided by Teagasc.
There is no doubt in my mind but that this Bill is not perfect but I believe it is a monumental step forward. It is a Bill, I will say, that Fianna Fáil supported in opposition, which is an important thing to see. I hope Fianna Fáil will also support it in government. This would put a floor under farm incomes and would increase the welfare and sustainability of farming families. It would be a shot in the arm for rural Ireland and would help guarantee our food security into the future.
