All the farmers from around the country are very welcome here tonight. I know they have all been very anxious and upset for the past number of weeks. What has happened is not fair. We know that the same standards do not apply in Brazil as apply here. I myself and my young fellas are farmers and we know what inspections are like. We worry about the TB test and the Bord Bia inspections, and then you can have an inspection out of the blue. We know what it means to be on the right side and to have everything in the right place. If you have a tag missing or if you have a drive off a tractor or it is only half on or whatever, you will not get your approval. It seems very wrong to me that produce can be put into a restaurant, or whatever it was, and it is stated that it is 99% Irish beef and 1% Brazilian beef. The first question arises there. Is our Irish beef contaminated by that 1% that went through no inspection and landed here into the food chain? I know that all the farmers in the Gallery, like me, go to funerals evening after evening. Many people die of old age and many people die from accidents. They die from different things, but cancer is the predominant thing people are dying from. We do not know what causes it but we have our part to play in this country to ensure we have good food and the highest standard possible. I am afraid we are losing that traceability and that expertise we had. We always heard that one bad apple will ruin the pack. It looks to me like we had and still have the fox minding the chickens. When people go to court, we always hear that the judge and the jury have their minds 50% or 60% made up as to whether or not the lad will be convicted. I will wait until tomorrow to finally decide but I am fairly sure that all the people I have talked to, like many of the people up in the Gallery, are saying that this man will have to go. I will decide finally tomorrow. I am a member of the agriculture committee. I am proud to be a member of it because it does great work. We believe we are doing a great job and we want to continue doing that. We have very important positions to take and decisions to make tomorrow and we will finally make those. I am very hurt at what has happened for the people I represent. I love going into their yards to talk about inspections and all the different things in farming, whether it is the weather, the price of animals or whatever it is. I want to be able to do that and to face the farmers head-on anytime because I came up here to do my best for them, as I do for all the other sectors of people I am proud to represent from the county of Kerry. I will make up my mind finally tomorrow but, like I said, this is a very worrying thing. The good word we have had about our produce and Bord Bia monitoring is all being jeopardised by this episode. From what investigations I have done and carried out, it has been made known to me that this particular individual was at this over 20 years ago, taking beef from Naas down to Midleton to put it into cold storage, the same beef we are talking about, Brazilian beef. I am seriously concerned to know, first of all, that he was appointed to such an important position as he is fulfilling at the minute. I, like all the other Members, am very concerned about it. There is a big onus on our shoulders tomorrow to listen and to account for everything that is said and goes on in there. I would not be anywhere else in the world and will ensure that whatever role I play will be on behalf of the farmers up in the Gallery, the farmers around the country and especially the farmers from Kerry, from Slea Head all the way over to the Cork county bounds. I will do that tomorrow.

Sentiment score: 0.03