The reason I asked the question in this context is that I was afraid if I tabled it to the Minister as a trade question, I would be told it should go to the Minister with responsibility for trade. This is why I asked it in the context I did, as the Minister will understand. The Minister mentioned the programme for Government and working with like-minded countries. There are already at least three, and maybe more, like-minded countries that are prepared to form a blocking minority. Is Ireland prepared to be part of …

I am taking the question on behalf of Deputy Carthy. This goes back to my question at the beginning about food safety and public health. The Mercosur deal is at the core of this but it is broader than that. We have an issue across Europe in that we are importing a lot of product from different parts of the world. In particular, the question about grain earlier was interesting because a lot of feed comes into the country from tropical climates. A situation could happen in the future - it is one of the things we need…

The Minister mentioned in a previous reply that quite a small amount of beef from Brazil comes into Ireland and that there is no evidence of this issue. Is the evidence being looked for? What kind of investigations are we carrying out into that, from an Irish and European perspective? Similarly, we have a large amount of poultry coming in under the Mercosur deal. I think it is 180,000 tonnes. We need to be vigilant in respect of that. We have a large poultry industry in Ireland and we eat a lot of poultry so we nee…

It is balance.

I accept that. I understand the point that we cannot produce everything in Ireland. That goes without saying. However, there is an issue regarding the authenticity of the product that we produce if we are labelling it and selling it as Irish and as having that authenticity around it, yet everything that goes into it is coming from somewhere else. We need to find that clear balance in respect of that. Regarding Mercosur, safeguards have been put in place. They have been voted through. There were no amendments made t…

Sudan is a very large country with huge natural resources. It has some of the richest agricultural land in Africa running along the edge of the Nile. It has huge natural resources, particularly gold, and it has been long held that much of this conflict is about those natural resources. Indeed, the influence of outside powers in that and the attempt to try to plunder the wealth of that nation to the detriment of its people, is one of the age-old stories of conflict around the globe. Unfortunately, that is the same s…

Deputy Smyth is a representative of a Border constituency, the same as I am, so she will very much understand this particular issue. A constituent of mine called Majella contacted me. She was born in Leitrim and lived there practically all of her life. She started her career working in the health services. Then she married a man from Fermanagh and moved six miles up the road. She continued to cross the Border every day to work and worked all her life. Now her mother has become ill towards the end of her life and ne…

I thank the Minister of State. I am aware of all of these circumstances. Yes, there is a payment in the North but the person who is living in the North and can apply for the carer's benefit in the North has to be caring for a person in that jurisdiction.

The fact that they live in two different jurisdictions, although they are only a couple of miles apart, is what gives rise to this peculiarity. This is a carer's case. There are other similar cases where habitual residency comes into play which may affect people's pensions and things like that on both sides of the Border. These are small numbers. We are talking about dozens of people in total. It is something that should be looked at across the whole social welfare code to see if a number of small statutory instrum…

She married the wrong man-----

-----on the wrong side of the Border.

As we know, each year we go through this process for the horse and greyhound industry to get this very large amount of public funding. It is a large amount of public funding and we have to place it in the context of the situation in the country. Every day, we come in here and talk about our hospitals, health services and education system, and places where we have resource difficulties and not enough money in place to deal with them, yet, we have this large amount of money going to these two industries. That is why …

I am glad to speak on the Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2025. As we know, many people in the country, almost 50% of the population, have health insurance. This is high when we consider that almost 77% of the cost of healthcare is provided by the State. You would wonder why the imbalance is there. Many people feel they have no option other than to have health insurance, particularly as they get on in life. There is always the fear of ending up on a waiting list, particularly for a diagnosis. I know many people w…

It is good to be here to contribute to these statements on SMEs and, particularly, the road haulage sector. As has been said by many, the sector is the lifeblood of small industry and business across the country. Fleets of white vans deliver everything we know to shops around the country, from bread and milk right through. All those vans on the road mean jobs in every part of the country and they need support. All of them are under stress and strain with the spiralling costs of insurance and fuel, which are not bei…

Like many of us, I remember when we woke one morning in February 2022 to learn Russia had invaded Ukraine. In the first week, everyone wondered what would happen and believed the Russians would roll over the Ukrainians very quickly. What has happened has proved otherwise, and it is certainly a tribute to the resilience and courage of the Ukrainian people that they have held up for so long against what would always have been considered a huge global military power and that they have been able to fight back and hold …

I move: That Dáil Éireann: recognises: — the threat posed to Irish agriculture, the environment and human rights by the proposed Mercosur Trade Agreement; — the benefits of Irish agriculture to the Irish economy and its importance to rural communities throughout the country; — that Irish farmers play a vital role as custodians of the land and promote biodiversity and work to protect the environment; — that Irish agricultural products is acknowledged for its high standards and is exported around the world; — the ver…

Hear, hear.

I thank all the farmers from every corner of the country who came to the Public Gallery tonight in order to listen and pay attention to this debate. When the Gallery is full, people often play to it. We have plenty of play actors in here tonight. We are here on serious business, namely the Mercosur trade deal. As Deputy Fitzmaurice stated, the agriculture committee spoke with the Polish agriculture committee this evening. We are also speaking with the French agriculture committee and with committees in a number of …

We are also hearing that the Government will come in here and tell us one story but that when the officials go out to Europe, they put a different story to the Commission. That needs to change. That is the reality. People can deny that all they like, but we see it in the text of the Minister's speech. The Minister stated that the Government is concerned about the Mercosur trade deal and that it is looking at the text. It is very vague and irresponsible. We have to take this matter seriously. The only way we can do …

It is so disappointing that when people are under such pressure that the Government does so little to try to help them out. People who are driving in rural areas - I represent a rural constituency - have little option but to drive wherever they need to go, whether it is to a hospital appointment, to work or to bring their children to school. Everything else in rural Ireland has been cut back and squeezed down. At a certain time of year, all of us will have people on to us about school bus transport. The children wh…