Agriculture Industry Seanad Éireann — 2021-12-16 ============================================================ Garret Ahearn (FG), Administrative Panel I thank the Minister of State for his reply. I acknowledge that people are allowed to have individual opinions, and I have no problem with that, but they should not relay individual "facts" that are not true. Is there any other sector that would see a high-profile politician write to a bank to say it should not give those people loans? Could we imagine if somebody wrote to banks asking them not to give plumbers loans because it is not right? It is just not acceptable and as far as I am concerned, it is an attack on rural Ireland and where I am from. It is an attack on businesses and really good and progressive businesspeople in the farming sector who want to support their local community. They spend locally and everything goes back to the community. It benefits Tipperary and all the towns around it. It is a disgrace that comments like that have not yet been clarified by his leader. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2021-12-16/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2021-12-16