I welcome the Minister for State to the House but I hoped the Minister might have been available. I accept it is not always possible for a Minister who has a busy schedule to be present. However, given the context of the decision made by the Minister, perhaps the intervention of the Minister of State, who is a fair minded man and who has a proven track record on agricultural issues, is needed as an adjudicator or independent referee on this issue. When he considers the points I am about to raise regarding the Minister's decision, he may be in a position to intervene.
There is an undoubted necessity to decentralise the Department of Agriculture and Food from Cork city. The Minister has committed himself to it in principle over a long period and I welcome that principle. However, the decision taken to relocate the office from Cork city to Clonakilty is one with which I, many farming organisations and farmers throughout Cork county do not agree. The most dominant farming organisation, the west Cork executive of the county IFA, has come out trenchantly in opposition to this decision. That decentralisation is necessary is unquestionable. Currently, many farmers travel from the Beara Peninsula and peripheral regions of my constituency to Cork city. There are parking problems outside Hibernian House in the South Mall and the opening hours of the office are restrictive.
The decision to relocate in principle is sound. However, Clonakilty has its back to the sea and is not the primary location for a decentralised office. It would be easy for me as a Deputy in Cork North West to say it should have been relocated to a town in my constituency. Many people say my home town, Macroom, would have been a suitable centre for the office. However, I believe on balance that either Dunmanway or, more likely, Bandon has more advantages for a decentralised office and that is where the Minister should have chosen. Many people are aghast at how he has turned what could have been a major opportunity for favourable publicity into an own goal. It may be a popular home town decision but the range of opposition is widespread, from prominent farming organisations to individual farmers. Last Monday I attended a meeting in Blarney which was organised by the Cork central executive of the IFA where this was a talking point for many farmers. People from Carriganimmy, Coolea, Kilnamartra and places south of Macroom like Kilmichael will be obliged to travel cross-country to Clonakilty rather than on the direct road to Cork city. These farmers would have been better served if the Minister had left the office in Cork rather than decentralising it.
I appeal to the Minister of State not to make the knee jerk reaction we anticipate in debates such as this, in which he feels obliged to defend the decision, but rather to think twice. Perhaps he could give a non-committal reply and reflect on the decision in the cold light of day. He should weigh up the current inconvenient location in Cork city versus the added inconvenience of the Clonakilty office, and look at the advantages of Dunmanway or Bandon as alternative locations. Perhaps he could also indicate what functions will be decentralised to the new office and what time frame is envisaged.
