The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and representatives of Bord Bia met the pig producers of Ireland last week. Put simply, the price of meal has gone up by 30 cent and the price of bacon is down by 40 cent. That equates to losses of roughly €38 per sow. There is a perfect storm here as these businesses cannot get work permits. Countries like France, Poland, Denmark and Holland have introduced schemes to help their pig industries so why can we not do so here? I said this to the Government yesterday. Why do we have to wait until this industry is wiped out? A perfect storm has been created by inflation and a lack of action from the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, and his Department.

Other countries in the EU have acted on this and there are Brexit funds and Covid-19 payments among the many ways of supporting this industry during this crisis. Otherwise we will not have a pig industry. We were told that some of these people openly cried at the meeting, telling how they were in pig farming all their life but will have to give it up because it is not viable. Will the Taoiseach ask the Minister to take action on this? He knows the problems so he should try to help out these farmers.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter for the first time with me today. It is a matter I have been working on for a significant number of weeks now and through the end of last year as the crisis emerged in the pig industry. I have met representatives of the Irish Farmers Association national pig committee directly and last week I attended a meeting of the vast majority of pig farmers nationally at a centre in the Green Isle Hotel in Dublin. I committed to work to deliver a support mechanism to help with the financial pressure they are currently experiencing. I am working with my officials on that. I met representatives of the banks as well as the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland to discuss supports and how to work with farmers through this very difficult period. I am very much aware of the issue and the industry is facing challenging times. It is subject to cycles but this is being acutely felt because of pressure from the input cost end and the price end. I and my Government colleagues will work with this really important sector. It is the third-largest part of our agrifood sector.

It supports 8,000 jobs.

Absolutely, and we want to support them through this period.