As stated by my colleagues, the Mercosur deal is a deal with consequential pitfalls that far outweigh the notion that, somehow, Irish farmers and poultry farmers will be better off. Let us face it, in that the trade-off for cars and pharmaceuticals is at the core of this anti-farmer deal. Make no mistake about it. The Government's handling of Mercosur was feeble and weak. It only decided to vote against it in the dying moments when backbenchers and some Ministers of State revolted and the Italians capitulated. Commissioner von der Leyen and the EU are not playing with a full deck of cards either. Their political manoeuvring to change the Mercosur agreement from an associate to a partnership agreement was a coercive manipulation of the democratic process that removed the power of each nation to vote individually for or against the deal. We believe this is a breach of EU treaties. This must be challenged. We ask the Government to stand by rural communities and farmers and to mandate its MEPs to vote against this bad deal. The importation of 99,000 tonnes of beef and 180,000 tonnes of poultry will depress the markets and introduce unregulated meat of lower quality, with a high risk of banned pesticides, hormones and antibiotics entering the nation's diet. Combine this with 75,000 ha of rainforest wiped out in 2025 alone, and much more to come, destroying the lungs of the Earth and trampling on indigenous people and their way of life. Surely these actions will lead to a huge carbon footprint, increased climate change and, most of all, depletion of our beef and poultry sectors. We call on the Government to mandate its parties' MEPs to vote against this anti-farmer deal, to publicly and fully support the legal action taken by MEPs and to stop ratification of the Mercosur trade deal before we realise the true meaning of Oscar Wilde's quote. Nowadays, we know the price of everything but the value of nothing. I call on all Members to support the motion.

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