This is the third motion brought forward by Sinn Féin in relation to the Mercosur deal. The Government's position was not clear here in Ireland. On Wednesday, the Taoiseach said a lot of progress had been made, and then, on Thursday, he said we were not backing Mercosur. We had our motion last month in this Chamber, when the Minister for agriculture refused to categorically state the Government’s opposition to this deal. If the Government’s position was not clear here in Ireland, then I would imagine it was not clear at all in Europe. Our Dáil motion in 2019 gave a clear mandate to the Government to go out to Europe to build alliances and to build a block against the Mercosur deal. That clearly did not happen. The calls that have been made in the motion brought forward this evening are very important. What we saw in Athlone on Saturday shows and tells us that the public want answers to the calls that have been made in this motion, particularly in relation to the publication of a full and detailed account of all of the actions this Government has taken at EU level - the conversations, the debates, what has been said by Ireland at a European level and what work had been done at an EU level in relation to this deal. We are asking in this motion for the Government to actively and publicly support the legal action. We need an answer tonight. Is the Government doing that or is it not? We also need to know that all Irish MEPs will be mandated to vote against Mercosur, and that the parties in government will do the same. Standards matter. It is backbreaking for Irish farmers to follow the rules, regulations, inspections and everything they have to follow to make sure they produce a quality standard, which they do. They are not the standards that are available in any of the countries in Mercosur. It is a joke to think we would allow sub-standard beef on our shelves and put our people at risk of serious breaches in food safety by allowing these items to be on our shelves. The Government needs to do the right thing by telling us what it has done and will do to block this deal.

Sentiment score: 0.08