When the European Commission proposed to slash Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, funding by as much as 25%, the response from the Irish Government should have been to rule out any cut at all. Instead, the Government decided to run for political cover claiming that it was just a starting point. It should have told Europe flat out that any proposals to cut CAP funding were a non-starter for Ireland. Last week, we got an insight into perhaps why that was the case, when a former Fine Gael Taoiseach cynically degraded rural Ireland as a whole. He said he was seeking an honest conversation. Well, how about this? It was a Fine Gael Government that led the negotiations on the current CAP and a Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Government that signed off on it. They did so during a period when Ireland had become a net contributor to the EU budget. In doing so, they gave their blessing to a European budget that saw the amount assigned to fund CAP reduced from 37% to 30%, a cut in real time for our farming families. We now know that Ursula von der Leyen wants to do the same thing again. We also know that an element of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil think rural people have it too good. The agriculture Council is due to meet next Monday to discuss the next CAP. Will the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, in his closing remarks, address whether Ireland will categorically rule out accepting the EU budget that contains further cuts to CAP? Will he also commit to advocating for new, enhanced and reinvigorating funding?

Sentiment score: 0.10