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The agenda for today's meeting is to continue the examination of Mercosur and the use of antibiotics and growth hormones in beef production. The committee will hear from the following representatives. From the Irish Farmers Association, we are joined by Mr. Francie Gorman, president, Mr. Damian McDonald, director general, and Mr. Tomás Bourke, senior policy executive, livestock, sheep and animal health. From the Irish Farmers' Journal, we are joined by Mr. Adam Woods, deputy editor, and Mr. Philip Doyle, picture editor. I invite Mr. Gorman to make his opening statement. He has two minutes.

I thank the members of the committee for inviting the IFA and the Irish Farmers' Journal to this meeting to go through the findings of a fact-finding mission we made to Brazil earlier last month. The findings are startling.

They challenge in a big way the narrative put forward by those cheerleading the Mercosur deal about the claimed outcomes of the agreement and how it will impact on farmers. The findings expose the inability of Brazilian authorities to verify where this meat is produced and the standards to which it is produced. It shows how far removed the production of beef in Brazil is from the standards imposed on European farmers. Multiple audits carried out by DG SANTE show these discrepancies continue to exist in Brazil and it is unacceptable to us that European farmers are expected to produce beef to standards that do not apply in Brazil. The recent recall of food that contained a hormone used in breeding females, which we were guaranteed a year ago was not being used, underlines the concerns we have about this issue.

After our fact-finding mission, Dr. Paddy Wall gave us the opinion that this went to the heart of the Union's strategy on antimicrobial resistance, public health protection and the principle that imported food should be produced to standards equivalent to those required in the European Union. He stated:

Public health cannot be compromised or selectively applied to facilitate trade deals. If AMR is the... global health threat that the EU and WHO say it is, then the standards applied to [European] farmers must also inform the conditions placed on imports[.]

That is an opinion Dr. Wall gave on our submission, which members have received and read in advance of today. It is absolutely key. When the WHO states that antimicrobial resistance is one of the top global health threats, yet the European Union, including the Commission and, in particular, the Commission President, is driving this deal with scant regard for what is going on in Brazil, it is not good enough.

I know members have read the report, so I will leave it at that. I will hand over to Mr. Adam Woods, deputy editor of the Irish Farmers' Journal. He was on the trip to Brazil with Mr. Liam MacHale, initially, and Mr. Tomás Bourke and Mr. Philip Doyle.

As Mr. Gorman said, we travelled to Brazil. The first part of it was the World Meat Congress. During the congress, the standout was two presentations. One was on research into using hormones in the future in Brazil and how Brazil could meet its climate change objectives by using those hormones, which are banned in Europe. The second leg of the journey was travelling 3,000 km across Brazil through four states. During that trip, we found antibiotics freely available for purchase without prescription in stores. We found huge issues around tagging, traceability on livestock marts and farms, and environmental breaches. The antibiotics and hormones were the biggest find for us. We were able to prove they could be bought without prescription and with no record-keeping whatsoever. The European Commission says it has approved farms for EU imports but we could have been from one of those farms going into stores and purchasing antibiotics or hormones and there would be no record of us going in there.

Huge issues and questions remain about Brazil's ability to guarantee that beef enters Europe hormone free and is of the same standard. People talk of a level playing field and a similar standard but we are far from that. I believe Brazil is decades away from meeting the standard the EU holds its farmers to.

Thanks very much. Deputy Collins is substituting for Deputy Fitzmaurice this morning.

Temporarily. He is on the way.

That is grand.

I thank the witnesses for their presentations and opening statements, which I suppose we have all read at this stage. It has been clear to many of us for a long time that there has been a huge issue. It is a good many years, ten or more, since a similar exercise was done when the IFA and the Irish Farmers' Journal visited Brazil before.

They came back with a report that was very similar to the one before the committee today. These reports have shone a light on a product produced to a standard that is nowhere near the standard expected from farmers in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe who are expected to compete on the same playing field. That is simply unacceptable, not only to farmers but also to consumers because this is a huge food safety issue. The big point we need to get through to everyone is that this issue does not just affect the farming community; it affects everyone everywhere on this island and across Europe. If we allow products produced to a very low standard to come into Europe from Brazil or any of these Mercosur countries, we will dilute our food safety standards. That is simply unacceptable and cannot be traded off against any trade agreement.

The line has often been used that we are going to allow sub-quality beef to come into Europe so that German cars can be sold in South America. That is simply unacceptable.

To go back to the excellent work done by the IFA and Irish Farmers' Journal, Mr. Gorman mentioned in his opening statement, and it is also in the report, that while there will be a large quantity of beef coming from Brazil, there will also be beef coming from other countries in Mercosur. For example, there is the beef produced in the Pampas grasslands of Argentina, which is somewhere we all learned about in school. What are the standards like in Argentina and the other Mercosur countries? Are they similar to what the witnesses experienced in Brazil? Has much research been carried out into that?

First, the trip was to Brazil and not to the other Mercosur countries. Our report totally focuses on Brazil. To be clear, of the Mercosur countries, Brazil will be by far the biggest exporter of beef. That is why our focus was there. We knew before we went out that the standards applied here are not applied out there.

Brazil will be by far the biggest supplier of beef into the European market. Mato Grosso is home to 34 million cattle. That is why we targeted that state in particular as regards the food safety standards that were there. I am not sure what the standards are like in other countries. That would take a similar trip to those countries.

Has the European Union done any research in that regard?

I am unaware of any research. The European Commission kicked back to us and said it was happy with the safeguards, checks and controls it has put in place for any country in South America. However, we saw from the recall last week, that they are not working. We had beef with illegal hormones enter the food chain in Italy just three weeks ago. The Commission's argument that its checks and balances are working is completely nullified by that recall.

The use of antibiotics and hormones, etc., is a major problem. Mr. Gorman also referred to the movement of cattle without any proper traceability. That opens up abuse of everything else. Even if there is a farm that is approved and meets the standards for providing beef into the European market, there is no way of knowing that the cattle that end up in the slaughterhouse or the product that ends on the table actually came from that farm, if traceability is not in place.

Deputy Kenny has identified the kernel of the issue. While I welcome his remarks in relation to the investigation, this is even more than a food safety issue because antimicrobial resistance is a huge human health issue. It is not about residue surveillance; it is the fact that antibiotics are used inappropriately and unnecessarily. That drives the level of resistance out there and makes antibiotics less effective going forward. This is actually a generational human health issue. Critical medicines will no longer be effective. The EU has taken a lead in that space. Irish farmers, in particular, have led. We have reduced our usage of these critically important antibiotics by over 50%. In Brazil, we were able to buy these over a counter without a word of the local language or a question being asked.

In the context of certification, the reality is that a product of animal origin cannot be certified without a comprehensive national database. There are supposedly 238 million animals in Brazil, but nobody knows. Brazil is currently trying to advance legislation to make it compulsory to identify animals from birth by maybe 2032. We interviewed a number of farmers on that and the reaction was, "No way, no day". They do not have infrastructure.

If one does not have a traceability system, as we all know what we have in this country, and it is set out in detail on page 13 of our report, the level of oversight that is required and the amount of infrastructure, from the farm to the marts, the individual sales and the fallen animal removals, will be significant. Unless we capture every single animal in a country, all we are doing with any other type of traceability system is facilitating the laundering of cattle. Those cattle can be tagged at ten, 12 or 14 months, and one can tell whatever story one wants about it. We visited farms that were deemed European eligible. One farmer told us they had to be tagged by the time they were approximately ten months. These were buying in from multiple farms. Another farmer told us they had to be tagged 90 days before being sent off to slaughter, and he or she would tell us what we wanted to hear about the animals from that point on. The critical component of this is the traceability system, because in the absence of that, one cannot credibly certify any product because one is blind to the history of that animal. This is what has been evidenced now with the hormone that has been found, a hormone that is used in breeding females. It should never be coming into the market. Those females should not have been going in. We observe meat factories where some animals are tagged and others are not. They all go down the chute together and then Europe accepts the product based on self-verification. It is no surprise that the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, since 2017, has found all of these failings. The Brazilian authorities do not want to address these shortcomings. They are refusing the auditors on one hand - that is evidenced; it is public knowledge and published by the Commission - but on the other hand we are trying to race through a Mercosur trade deal that will give access to the equivalent of 4 million cattle-----

I thank Mr. Bourke. I am conscious of my time. I do not mean to rush him. The final point I want to make is that we have done great work through this committee in talking to other countries in Europe that have similar concerns. We met with the French and Polish committees, we will hopefully meet with people representing Italy shortly and we are also looking to meet with the Netherlands. Many of those countries have issues with this and we hope to be able to see where we can build a blocking minority at Council level. That is what we need to do. The problem is that, while under a lot of pressure, we have asked the Minister, Deputy Heydon, if he will clearly state that he will be part of that blocking minority. The Government has not stated that. Although it says it is in the programme for Government, it has not stated that. I fear that if there is a blocking minority coming into place, Ireland could be the very country to let us down in that respect. I would like to know, from a farm organisation's perspective, what work has the IFA done with farm organisations in other countries that are working to a similar tune? What is its view in regard to where we are in Ireland?

I call Senator Boyhan. Go ahead, Senator.

Can I get an answer to the question?

I will get an answer to the Deputy. We will be coming around again.

I will come back to Deputy Kenny on that.

I am conscious of my time, so I am just going to make a few points and ask two or three questions. At the outset, I welcome Mr. Francie Gorman, president of the IFA, and the director general, Mr. Damian McDonald, and their team, and also the deputy editor of the Irish Farmers' Journal, Mr. Adam Woods. It is good to see him and put a face on him. I also welcome Mr. Philip Doyle. I commend them on their work and collaboration. They collaborate and overlap and are very close in terms of their governance and corporate interaction. It is important that they have demonstrated a collective. Of course, the Irish Farmers' Journal has that readership and media exposure to highlight it.

We have all received the report and I commend the people who laid it out. It is very focused. It is, after all, only about Brazil. We must set the context here because people are always listening in and no doubt our proceedings will be broadcast later today in the national media. I want to paint the picture of the absolute commitment of all members on all sides of the Houses and this committee. Economic viability, environmentally sound and socially responsible agriculture is always and has always been the focus of this committee. We want to ensure, of course, the long-term viability of Ireland's agriculture and food sector. That underpins everything we do, and I know it underpins everything the IFA and the Irish Farmers' Journal do.

At the core of our engagement here today must be European farmers and the health and well-being of our citizens because that is really what it is about. That is the important point. We are conscious there has been a recall of frozen beef in a range of countries including Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia, and we know there has been a recall of frozen beef in the United Kingdom in recent days, and indeed in Northern Ireland.

That is an important aspect of this.

I read the report, as everyone here did. It found no evidence in practice of effective controls of medicines used in farm animals, no national traceability system, and no credible means to certify beef as per the import standards and requirements. It is clear that there is a problem in relation to this country and this element of Mercosur in terms of confidence in our food chain, public health and issues of the viability and sustainability of agriculture and the meat sector. The witnesses called for a number of things and we need to get to the bottom of them. We can talk here all day about the problems but we all know what those problems are. What are the witnesses calling for? They are calling on the Government and MEPs to honour their commitments to EU consumers and farmers and we accept that. It is critically important. They say that the beef and poultry concessions under the EU Mercosur deal must be suspended until Brazil can demonstrate an operational and audited animal identification and national traceability system. That is all perfect and we agree with all of that. They express, as we do, concerns about antibiotic access, prescription controls and traceability and the impact on meat consumption. We know that where there is a breakdown in confidence in meat consumption, it impacts the markets. There are multiple channels right across Europe so if there is any doubt, people will leave it out. We will see people pulling back from the consumption of meat. Any lack of confidence in the consumption of meat will have an impact on the markets. That is common sense. We all know that.

The most telling element of the report was the contribution from Dr. Patrick Wall, a professor of public health at UCD. He said that public health cannot be compromised or selectively applied to facilitate a trade deal, in this case Mercosur. We all know the challenges of it but I would like to hear about the opportunities. We have heard all the promises about Mercosur and how it is going to let us into new markets in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay and the enormous opportunities there. Let us face it, we must always look at the opportunities too but with the caveat that it is also going to distort the European market. I am sounding very parochial when I talk about the Irish market but that is a reality. This is about sustainable agriculture and, specifically, sustainable Irish agriculture. It is also about premium agriculture and meat production. I would be interested to hear some commentary on the benefits. Do the witnesses see any benefits in the Mercosur deal? That is important, particularly in terms of access to new markets. That is exciting in itself but it cannot come at any price. What is the witnesses' understanding of the position of the Minister for agriculture, Deputy Heydon, the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, and the Tánaiste, Simon Harris, on Mercosur and on our concerns? I replayed some coverage by RTÉ of the Tánaiste's view and there is a lot of ambiguity out there. These are our political leaders, who are represented by some of the members here in some shape or form. It is important that we understand the witnesses' understanding of their position and the commitments they have received from those individuals.

I will go back to Deputy Kenny's question first. He asked what we have done along with other European farm organisations. I sit on the council of COPA and am one of five vice-presidents of the organisation. It is an umbrella organisation for 58 European farm organisations, 54 of which are vehemently opposed to this deal. They are working in their own countries to try to ensure that their governments will oppose this deal. At European level, it is fair to say that it will come down to the positions of the big countries like France, Italy and Poland. Our understanding at the moment is that France is vehemently opposed to it, Poland is opposed to it and Italy is sitting on the fence but, without the Italian vote, it is unlikely that this will pass at Council level. However, that does not mean that we as a country should adopt that position and give up on it. There has been a commitment in the programme for Government from the word go and this relates to Senator Boyhan's question on the position of our Government. The commitment given was that the Government would oppose it and work with like-minded countries.

To be clear, we have heard all the protestations about how opposed the Government is to it and what it is doing but we are concerned it is not doing enough. That is why we went to Brazil, namely, to show that the checks and balances and control systems in Brazil were not working and not in place. To be clear, it should not be down to organisations like the IFA or the Irish Farmers' Journal, with their limited resources, to go to Brazil and show the downsides of what is going on in regard to beef production out there. If the European Union and our own Departments were working right, they should be doing this, leading the charge and saying that this is unacceptable and agriculture cannot be used as a bargaining chip for big business and trade deals. That is what is happening here. It is not just about Brazil, to be clear on this. There are multiple trade deals in the offing and if they sell out agriculture on this one, they will sell out agriculture on every other trade deal as well. It is a huge issue for us.

The benefits of it, as far as we can see from an Irish agriculture perspective, are zero. There is talk about the whiskey and dairy industries and how there might be small benefits there. We see, particularly on the dairy side, that any slight benefits that might happen will be completely wiped out by the undermining of the beef trade. If we do not have a beef industry for dairy-bred calves in this country, we will not have a dairy industry. If we do not have an agricultural sector in this country and a viable livestock sector, we do not have a viable tillage sector, and that is being challenged as well.

I have to go on to Deputy-----

I just want to make-----

Mr. Gorman can come back in on the other questions. He will get a chance the whole way along. I call Deputy Cleere.

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach. I appreciate it. I am very conscious of my time. I welcome all of our guests here today. We are speaking about an issue that lies at the heart of our rural communities. I am a rural TD from Carlow-Kilkenny. The Mercosur trade agreement, and how we protect Irish farmers, is a huge issue to me, my party and hundreds of thousands of people around the country. As we all know, farming is not just a job but a way of life for many in Ireland, particularly those on family farms. We all know that our farmers in Ireland work tirelessly producing really high-quality food while adhering to the highest environmental and animal welfare standards. The proposed Mercosur deal raises significant concerns about how it could impact their livelihoods. I refer particularly to the report, and I acknowledge the work the IFA and the Irish Farmers' Journal did in producing this report. It is shocking but it is hugely important and I acknowledge the witnesses' role in doing that.

It is important to maintain balance here and we have to recognise that there are potential economic opportunities that could arise from opening markets, but we have to be clear. I want to be very straight here. Our farmers cannot bear the weight of this agreement if it puts their livelihoods at risk - end of conversation, non-negotiable. The prospect of increased imports or cheaper agricultural products from South America could drive down prices and threaten the sustainability of our farms, and that is a massive issue.

I want to talk about two things before I come to the witnesses for comments. In regard to strong safeguards and higher standards, the reality is that our Government and MEPs will need to insist on concrete protections for sensitive sectors, particularly beef and dairy. We cannot allow the influence of low-quality imports to undermine our farmers' work. As I said earlier, we pride ourselves on the quality of agricultural products. Our farmers should not have to compete with products that do not meet these regulations. Could I get the witnesses' overall view on that?

We might let Mr. Woods in first on that.

As regards the safeguards, they are retrospective. They trigger an investigation, so they are not a block. That investigation could take a long time.

I will go back to the audit regarding the recall last week and how that works. The European Commission did an audit in 2024 in Brazil. I will quote from that audit. It says:

... the current arrangements in place to guarantee that cattle, meat from which is destined for the EU market, have never been treated with oestradiol 17β ... are ineffective.

Essentially, that audit in 2024 highlighted that Brazil could not guarantee no treatment. What happened last week is exactly what that audit said would happen, yet we have no action. We had the European Commission coming out last week to say the report on the latest recall would be issued some time in 2026, which to my mind is not acceptable because a lot of this work and voting on the Mercosur trade agreement will be completed by that stage. I do not have confidence in the safeguard clause but the lads or Mr. Bourke might come in on that.

I thank the Deputy. The issue has moved beyond even farm economics at this stage.

The safeguard clauses are not worth the paper they are written on in the context of the potential economic impact on Irish beef farmers and EU beef farmers more widely. What type of safeguard or what price do we put on human health for generations to come, and the loss of critical medicines that are not being developed? No new antibiotics are being developed, so we have to protect the current antibiotics. What we witnessed in Brazil was completely at odds with the stated objectives of the European Commission in the farm to fork and green deal strategies and the claims about the benefits of the Mercosur agreement. I do not know how we can have that level of access to antibiotics without any control. This is way beyond safeguard clauses from an economic perspective.

Okay.

In addition-----

Could I just-----

I am sorry.

I am conscious of the time. I will come back to this later but I have a specific question on compensation and support. We must have a plan in place should there be any negative impacts to the deal to support farmers, including financial compensation. A false narrative is out there at the moment suggesting that, if the deal were to go ahead, there would be a 10% safeguard. Prices for an Irish farmer can decrease by 9.5% one year and 9.5% the next year. Over the course of five years, that could be over 45%. Last week at an agriculture committee in Brussels where Mercosur was being discussed, the Commission set out its position on the bilateral safeguard clause. Agreement was sought and received from the Commission that the 10% price and volume trigger would only be indicative. That means support could be activated well below that level. Regardless of whether Mercosur comes in, it is important that this message get out there, because clarity matters to Irish farmers should the deal pass via a qualified majority vote despite continued opposition from all Irish MEPs from all parties and none. I just want to acknowledge that. Do the witnesses want to make some comments on that?

Anyone who has analysed the safeguard clause sees it is fundamentally flawed. We would need a 10% price reduction and a similar increase in imports as well. I acknowledge that efforts are under way to make the safeguard clause more effective. I am not sure what the phrase "only be indicative" means. Last night, the trade committee of the European Parliament, which followed on from the agriculture committee, proposed a reduction of the 10% to 5% and a number of other improvements in the safeguard clause. The difficulty with all of this is that there is no doubt that the Commission's strategy is to use the safeguard clause as a Trojan horse to get the overall agreement through. The experience with safeguard clauses down through the years has been very underwhelming.

I return to the points made by Mr. Woods and Mr. Bourke already about the 2024 audit in Brazil in terms of what the Commission said at that time. The Commission said that Brazil had stopped exporting meat from females in order to put an action plan in place to deal with the issue whereby it could not verify that animals coming into the European Union were treated with oestradiol.

I thank Mr. McDonald.

Now, the animals have turned up-----

I am really conscious of time. I am sorry for cutting across Mr. McDonald but the Leas-Chathaoirleach is fairly serious about time and he will stop me at 1.20 p.m. I have to be on my best behaviour.

It was confirmed this morning that the Government had secured the continued availability of the nitrates derogation. I say that specifically to Mr. Gorman. I welcome this positive vote in favour of Ireland's nitrates derogation. The next stage is going to be key. We will have a key role to play in terms of the conditionalities within the derogation decision. I welcome the decision. I thank Mr. Gorman and his organisation, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste-----

Deputy Cleere knows well that he is just making a political statement. We are here to talk about Mercosur.

-----and the Minister for agriculture. We must continue to work with farmers in this area and try to continue to improve water quality.

We must be fair about it.

What is most important is that there is a specific plan to ensure the continued derogation beyond the current decision.

We are talking about beef farmers. Let us look after the beef farmers. Deputy Cleere need not worry, the dairy lads will look after themselves in Kilkenny.

It is really important that we have a discussion on Mercosur but this news only broke in the last half an hour and I would like to get the views of the witnesses on it.

What about the beef farmers in Kilkenny? Deputy Cleere should not turn his back on them.

With respect, a Leas-Chathaoirligh-----

In fairness, we are talking about beef farmers.

It is welcome news. I will go no further than that because, to be fair, today is about this-----

Yes, Mercosur.

I want to be quite clear on this: the two issues are completely unconnected. Separate commitments were given in the programme for Government about the derogation, which we hope has now been dealt with, and Mercosur. They are completely separate. While we are glad to see a resolution to the derogation, Mercosur is the current issue that is on the table that has to be addressed. The points that the lads have made about it and the seriousness of it show that it has gone beyond economics.

If people want to lead farmers around, put the money in front of us and we will follow it. That is what we generally do. We are good at following it. It comes down to a huge public health issue.

Mercosur could bring about the end of Cillin Hill market. I am one of the boyos there.

It will not be closed on my watch.

It will not be for the money the Deputy spends-----

Have a bit of respect, Chair.

I call Senator Daly.

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for the report and their findings. With the greatest of respect, it should not have been down to them to have to do what they did. Fair play to them. What was happening was as obvious as the noses on all our faces, but somebody had to go out and prove it, which is what they did. That has to be appreciated.

Fair play to them.

I am a beef farmer, but I am also a politician. As a politician, I do not just represent farmers. I represent every man, woman and child who walks the streets of Ireland and, indeed, Europe. The big issues here are consumers and human health. I am a veteran of this committee. We spent the entirety of the lifetime of the previous Dáil arguing about prescriptions for antiparasitic medicines. We could not even a get a dose without a prescription, never mind an antibiotic. I read in the witnesses' report that five Paddies - pardon the expression - can walk into a shop, chemist or merchant premises in Brazil and order and buy stuff without any traceability. That is not on. There has to be equivalence of standards.

We have been doing this from the inception of the EEC and the CAP. We heard time and again that we were doing it to support farmers in producing affordable, safe and traceable food. How can we stand over bringing in food that is not traceable or safe? Who is going to police this? If, for the purposes of discussion, this were to go ahead, how can we make consumer aware of what they might possibly be buying? It is a health hazard. That is the bottom line. If this comes in, people will be walking into supermarkets and will not know what they are buying off the shelf.

This is not a first. We have had many meetings in here. In the past five minutes, the Leas-Chathaoirleach mentioned the plight of tillage farmers. As we speak, genetically modified grain is being brought in from the Mercosur countries. The tillage farmer cannot compete with that. This is an example of how beef farmers might end up where tillage farmers are now in the context of trying to compete with genetically modified grain. The witnesses did not come in to listen to me; I came in to hear what they have to say. I will let them respond.

I thank the Senator very much. I will touch specifically on the medicines part. The other lads will go through some of the other points. The Senator is right. It is timely that from 1 December this year, every farmer in this country is obliged to get a prescription to even get a dose, as we call it. Farmers have to get prescriptions from people who have knowledge of their farms. They cannot purchase anything from a dispenser without that. In Brazil, we were able to walk in and buy highest-priority critically important antibiotics without having a word of the local language. We did it just by pointing to bottles. These are products that in this country and across the EU cannot even be prescribed by a farmer's vet without sensitivity and culture testing being done in advance and the results of those tests coming back. A dispenser cannot dispense in the absence of a prescription. In addition, that prescription is only valid for five days. All parties must then record that transaction and maintain a record for five years. This is the level of difference.

Why have we got these EU regulations? It is because of societal demands across the EU. The demands of EU consumers are what have driven many of these regulations and controls. That is why they have been imposed on us. On the other hand, the very same people who imposed them and various additional costs on EU and Irish farmers are taking in, under the cover of darkness, beef that they do not know the origin of until it arrives at the factory door. That is the problem. Creating awareness and telling people about it is a huge challenge. It will not even solve the antibiotic issue, because once the product has been used-----

There are time constraints on me. There is one question that I meant to ask. We had the EU Commissioner in the room down the hall here talking about the examination of carcases. It is not possible to tell any of this from looking at a carcase with the naked eye. It might be done if the carcase is brought to a laboratory.

No. This is not about residue testing. Unless there is full transparency on the entire production system from birth through to processing and all the products used, audits cannot find this unless there is a sufficient level of data.

On the recall, people do not understand how serious the issue was. Oestradiol 17β is a known carcinogen and it was banned in Europe in 1981. It is used freely in Brazil. It is available for purchase in Brazil in the same places that we purchased the antibiotics. In terms of things getting into the food chain, I go back to what the EU Commission said to the effect that our checks and balances are robust and that we are checking everything that comes in. This got in. According to a report from the rapid alert system for food and feed, RASFF, the recall model that the EU uses, the Italian company that received the affected beef declared that the entire product was transferred, cooked and served on 14 November. This is on the EU Commission's website. It has entered the food chain. Beef containing illegal hormones has entered the food chain right across Europe. The recall is ongoing. We do not know the other countries in which it has entered the food chain. It is of huge importance in the context of the EU Commission's standards failing and letting that beef in.

Maybe Philip Doyle got a picture of it for the Irish Farmers' Journal. Was Mr. Doyle taping what the witnesses saw in Brazil?

When we went to Brazil, the idea was to have a look and see what was going on. I probably pushed back a little. As a photographer, I wanted to see what was going on and make a decision on the basis of what I saw. As we went around, it became clear. Looking at how we farm in Ireland versus what goes on over there, there is a huge difference in standards.

We talked a lot about not having tags, but one of the biggest things we found over there is that there is no need to do that for the first ten months. Therefore, you do not know where those animals are going and then they are moving around on the back of trucks to different farms. The biggest thing was that some had tags and some did not. That was the biggest issue because it shows there is no system. If there are no tags altogether, that is a system. If everything has tags, that is also a system. The fact that it was mixed between the two mead it clear that there is no system.

The biggest shock for me was the antibiotics. The Senator put it perfectly. Even in the reports and what we are seeing back from people reading what we have put out in the past few weeks, especially on social media, people are not really getting the antimicrobial resistance, AMR, piece. We did a video with the Department a number of years ago about the importance of AMR. Anyone who has children, when you go to the doctor and they need an antibiotic, will know that the doctor is going to say, "No". I heard a story yesterday. A friend of mine's father is in hospital. The antibiotics he is being given are not working. They are looking for alternative treatments, and it is not looking good. Mr. Bourke mentioned that we stated in an earlier report we produced that AMR does not respect borders. Brazil is suffering, and that is what we found over there. The reports in Brazil are that 32,000 people died last year because of AMR. That is crossing borders. That is what consumers have to understand.

I am not a farmer. Believe it or not, I just like taking pictures of farms. If you look at it from a consumer perspective, which I have some experience of because I spent-----

Mr. Doyle can come back in again. Deputy Collins is next. I thank the Senator for keeping his comments to Mercosur. One hundred thousand farmers will be affected by this. I would ask the committee to keep it to Mercosur and nothing else.

I thank our guests for being here. I say "Well done" to the IFA and the Irish Farmers' Journal, for exposing the truth. We probably knew a lot of it already but sometimes the proof is in the pudding. The proof is in the viewing. I have looked at it there and I have seen the scandalous situation we find ourselves in.

I do not want to go back down along the line taken by the previous questioners. Great questions that have been asked already, but we have seen the recall of frozen beef. I looked at a reply from the European Commission. It states that it is up to the Brazilians to remedy the situation, but this meat is coming into the EU food chain. Why is the Commission passing the buck? It looks like this is an exercise in kicking the can down the road.

It looks like France is 100% against it. Poland is against it. Italy is on the fence. We know where the Commission President stands. Where do we stand? That is the question. In the last week, Regina Doherty almost came out and said that she is supporting it. Barry Andrews has said that he is supporting it. How are we going to tell Europe to clean up its act and make sure it makes the right decisions when we cannot do that ourselves? We know well where Ciaran Mullooly stands in relation to the issue. He is 100% opposed to it.

This question is probably for the IFA. Have there been meetings with Micheál Martin and Simon Harris? Have they given clarity that their MEPs are 100% against this stinking, rotting meat deal that has been done against the European people and the Irish farmers? Are they 100% against it or are they only 90% against it? Where do they stand? We need answers and I will be asking for that clarity today in the Dáil from the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, and for them to stop messing around. Their MEPs are singing one story. There are good and genuine MEPs in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil who are opposed to this deal because they certainly know the damage it does. It looks like the city ones are running on a different story to the rural MEPs. That has to be clarified for the people of this country. Maybe the witnesses have got that clarity, but I certainly have not got it.

To be clear, we are not 100% clear on where the Government stands on this deal yet. We have said that already. We met the Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, when he was the Minister for trade, with the CEOs of the major meat companies. He was quite clear that day there was not enough in this deal to support it. Yet, we still get the feeling and hear the whispers that leave doubts in our minds. We went to Brazil initially to see for ourselves because we did not see anybody else doing it. As I said, we should not have to do this. For two organisations with the limited resources we have to go to Brazil on a trip like that is not something we took lightly. To be fair to the five lads who went over and the four lads who went up into the states in Brazil and found this, it is not a trip you take lightly and it comes with danger. It required quite an amount of bravery and commitment on their part to go and do this. What we found was completely unacceptable. That is why we appreciate the opportunity to come here and put these points to the committee. There is a key ask. Perhaps Mr. McDonald would like to come in at this point on the recall and the report.

I add to Mr. Gorman's comments about the three people either side of us here at the table, Mr. Woods, Mr. Doyle and Mr. Bourke. When people traipse 3,000 km across a country in a car and with not much else, it is a fair commitment.

Looking at the recall, there are a couple of critical issues that need to be called out. In its response, the Commission said the full report into this recall will be published early in the new year. That is totally unacceptable. The full audit, warts and all, of that report needs to be published immediately and before the vote on the Mercosur deal. We are concerned about why there is a delay there. A date early in the new year has been cited.

The timeline is that Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, is due to fly to the Mercosur countries on 20 December to seal this deal on foot of what she anticipates will be a ratification of the Mercosur deal by the member states on 16, 17 or 18 December. That is the plan. The safeguard clause will be voted on first. It is all part of using that as a Trojan horse to get the deal through. It is not acceptable that the full audit would not be put in front of every legislator in every member state who has a decision to make around this deal. If there is one thing this committee could do immediately, it would be to write to the Commission and ask for a copy of that report. Why can it not issue the whole report?

As Mr. Woods outlined, meat containing this hormone has been eaten by EU citizens. Twelve months ago, the Commission identified that the controls in Brazil to stop this product entering the food chain were ineffective and could not be relied upon. It has now come to pass that it is in the food system in Europe. It is unbelievable that the Commission made that finding 12 months ago, told us there was an action plan and it had all been solved, and here we are 12 months later and this hormone is turning up in EU food, and now it will not give us the full report. That report has to be put in front of everybody before they are asked to make a decision to facilitate Mercosur countries bringing more beef and poultry into the European Union.

Absolutely, and I appreciate the reply. Is the President of the European Commission going to go out on 20 December and say that part of Ireland is agreeing with this and other parts are not? Are we 100% sure we are getting 100% support against the deal from our MEPs and not having one of them is sitting on the fence in the way the Italians are at the moment? We need total opposition to this deal. If they have any interest in or respect for the health of the Irish people, they should know the least they can do is to be 100% against the deal, even if their fellow Europeans are not. I am shocked that they come out and say that certain aspects of this deal might be supported. That is absolutely nonsensical and it is a disaster for Irish agriculture.

We understand there will be a meeting of the representatives of the member states on 11 December to find out what the position is now. The safeguard clauses will be relied upon to try to get people to move their position. That is the concern. If we look at the wording in the programme for Government, it is carefully crafted. It says the Government will oppose the current Mercosur agreement. The danger is they will say they have a safeguard clause now, which would move the goalposts as regards the definition of the current agreement. That would be a concern. There is no question.

Mr. Gorman mentioned that we met the Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, who was then the Minister for trade, probably six or seven weeks ago, along with the IFA and the four major meat companies, ABP Food Group, Kepak, Dawn Meats and Liffey Meats, such is the importance of this. That is an unprecedented development in my time in the IFA because normally the relationships between Meat Industry Ireland, the IFA and farmers and the meat industry can be fractious. The reality is this is not just about farmers' livelihoods. It is about jobs in rural Ireland and those companies are rightly concerned about the viability of their businesses if the market in the European Union is going to be undermined by cheap beef coming in from Mercosur countries. Of course, those countries can produce meat cheaper because they do not have to put up with the standards.

Mr. Woods made a crucial point at the World Meat Congress. Brazil's strategy is not really to conform to EU standards. Its strategy is to get us to conform to their standards by using hormones. It is openly saying hormones are a good thing because their use is helpful with regard to climate change because the animals are on the planet for a shorter period of time. That is Brazil's strategy. Our problem is that beef production is dropping in the European Union. In ten or 15 years' time, we could have to take whatever rules Brazil imposes on us because we have a shortage. That is the strategy. Regarding the idea around equivalence of standards, one could not have any confidence in what the European Commission is telling us about this, based on what it did in the last 12 months alone.

I propose that we write a letter to the Commission, as suggested by Mr. McDonald.

I second that.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

I thank the witnesses for highlighting this issue. A couple of months ago, I said that we, the agriculture committee, should have been sending people from this committee out there to highlight what the IFA has done. If we cannot speak up for farmers, who will? I thank the IFA for doing that.

The safeguards are not worth the paper they are written on. I see a massive issue for people who are bringing yearlings to the mart. How are they going to say, when prices are down 10%, that it is because of Mercosur meat coming in? I do not see how they will be able to get any compensation for that. I am hearing they could be able to get compensation at a lower rate. That word "could" will not stand up in any court. If the price of my meat drops by 5%, I cannot see how that safeguard - "could" - is going to work. I do not think we should even be talking about safeguards because this deal stinks and we cannot accept it. It is simple as that.

I know how our traceability system works here. We tag our calves. It is easier to tag them when they are a day or two old because they are not as vigorous. When they are being tagged at ten months old, as the IFA said in its statement, it is like the wild west. It is crazy. The Mercosur countries are not tagging, do not have the blue card system and do not have any traceability. The idea of sticking a tag on the animal just before it goes to the market is not acceptable to us. We cannot do that here. We do not want to do that here. We like our system as it is so we should not accept it, for that reason. If the IFA had not gone out there, would we take the word of the Commissioners that this is a good deal and everything is hunky-dory out there? It absolutely is not. When the IFA members went into the merchant premises, it was like a child going into a sweet shop and saying, "I will have one of those, one of those and one of those." That is an absolute disgrace.

I absolutely was not shocked by what the IFA produced.

My shock is we are even speaking about this and that the Commission has not said, "No, we are going to put a stop to this for now and delay it for another while". How that has not happened, I do not know. I am disgusted with that part of it. We could say that we cannot accept the Mercosur trade deal in any form, at least until the report is published and we can look at it from there. That is one thing we must have now. It has to be put to the side until that report is out. If the Commission cannot issue it quick enough, that is its problem, not ours. We should not have to accept that.

As I have said all along, our farmers are a small part of Ireland but health matters to every single person. Mr. Doyle spoke about the sickness out in South America and that the drugs are not working on human health now. Does not that not raise a red flag for us? It would be nice to have some kind of a health report from out there. Is that what the Commission needs? I am baffled that we have not stopped and said, "Let us put this on the back burner for now until we get all the facts". Did the witnesses speak to any vets when they were out there to get their take on it? Is it a case of "This is normal; this is what we do every day". What does the audit system - the regular checks they carry out over there - look like?

I will deal with safeguards and compensation and then go to Mr. Woods. I welcome the Deputy's comments. In an ideal world, DG SANTE should be able to go out there and do a report and we should be able to take at face value that what is in the report is what its people saw out there after a thorough investigation. We can no longer accept that. That is a sad place for us to be in as European citizens. The safeguards were put there as a means to give politicians, whether at Council level or MEPs, an excuse to vote for this trade deal when they should never do it in the first place. The safeguards are worthless. They are not worth the paper they are written on. They were not agreed with the deal initially either. We have seen and shown why they will not work.

On the issue of compensation, €1 billion was promised when this deal was initially negotiated in 2019 by Phil Hogan, the then Commissioner for trade. That €1 billion has been pulled into a compensation fund that will compensate everybody in Europe for everything that goes wrong. You can be absolutely guaranteed that the compensation fund is going to be used, whether for a flood in Slovakia or an earthquake in southern Italy, and that farmers will never get a chance to access that funding. We will end up doing what they have always wanted us to do, namely, produce cheap food for nothing. I have been waiting all my farming life for the prices we are getting for our stock now. This could stop us getting a further upside in our beef price. That is not often said and it needs to be pointed out. When you bring more beef into the market, you dilute the value of that market. Whether that means you take a price cut or do not get a price increase, neither is acceptable.

The point Mr. Woods made, which has to be reinforced, is that this deal has been 25 years in the offing. Looking back 25 years, you could say very little has changed in those years. Now, the Commission expects us, 25 years on, to buy it. Mr. Woods might want to come in on a couple of points.

On tagging and identification, I recall speaking to an older farmer at home who told me about people buying cattle at fairs in the 1950s. They went along with a pair of scissors and cut the hair on the side of the animal - that is how they identified them. That is where they are at in Brazil. They are 75 years behind Europe. They are nowhere near ever getting to that stage. They are decades away. You see a bucket of paint and a brand being used to identify animals coming into a livestock mart or a brand being burnt onto the side of an animal with gas. That is where they are as regards identification. The Commission talks about where we are at but they are nowhere near there.

They do not want to get there.

They do not want to get there. As part of the World Meat Congress, we were brought to an official farm. There were two tags on everything.

I would have worries that those are the farms the European Commission officials are being brought to for their audits and inspections and that they are coming home saying everything is great and Brazil is making progress. When we go out through the country, though, and drive up the mountains and down the hills, that is when we see the real Brazil.

Just on the question Deputy Newsome Drennan asked, were the witnesses talking to any vets?

Yes.

We were. The interesting thing is the vet's role over there seems to be more about nutritional advice and maximising animal performance. That feeds into some of the other products it was being advised people use in the animals.

On the production standards, there are 8 million animals in what are called confinements. Confinements are the pictures you see of these large, 500 kg to 600 kg bulls standing on brown clay every day of their lives. That is what that farm is. That is what those confinements are. These are the large feed-lots that are being effectively funded by big business.

Mr. Bourke will get a chance to come back in and finish. Is that all right?

Yes. Effectively, the vets did not have any direct role. We asked about the antibiotics and it was very much left to the farmer's discretion.

I commend the witnesses on their research. They have done a service to our State with what they have achieved. Well done to them. There is serious concern out there and there is no point saying there is not. Given the unrestricted sale of antibiotics and growth hormones witnessed in Brazil - practices that would not be tolerated at all in Ireland or the wider EU - it is hard to see how this deal does not compromise public health in Ireland and the rest of the EU. That is a serious concern, given what the witnesses have outlined to us. Are there still opportunities or ways within the current Mercosur deal that would allow the EU to selectively remove items from the agreement, such as the import of beef from Brazil, subject to the conditions? How big a deal is this in terms of the EU perspective on the agreement? Is it likely to derail completely or will it have an effect at all?

Our understanding is that beef cannot be removed from the deal. The deal is the deal. It was one of the biggest sticking points in getting the deal over the line. If we go back to the last trade deal Australia did with the European Union, Australia was being offered 20,000 tonnes and refused to take it. That was the sticking point and that is why that deal fell asunder. Achieving these deals is predicated on the European Union selling out farmers. To be clear, it is 99,000 tonnes of prime cuts coming in, in fresh and frozen form, which is the equivalent of almost 4 million cattle. On foot of that, the quotas that are there are going to be reduced to tariff-free, which means the overall tariff on the beef coming in will be about 7% and it will be coming in in prime cut form. It completely undermines the value of our industry here. I do not see any way beef could be taken out of this deal and still have it go ahead. Our position is that, in its current form, beef should never have been in this deal. We should not be used as a bargaining chip. The production of food to feed people is too important to be sidelined or undermined in any trade deal. It should be separate.

What we have to remember is the view expressed by Dr. Patrick Wall and what price we put on human health. There is a lot of emphasis put on the value of this Mercosur trade deal for the big industrialists across Europe and the cars for cows, but are we now valuing the income of these large industrialists above the health of EU citizens for generations to come? As the president outlined, in the view of Dr. Wall:

Public health cannot be compromised or selectively applied to facilitate trade deals. If AMR is the major global health threat that the EU and WHO say it is, then the standards applied to EU farmers must also inform the conditions placed on imports ...

If it means the entirety of the Mercosur trade deal has to be stood down until this issue is addressed, then so be it, or do we put the finances of the large industrialists of Europe ahead of the health of European citizens?

Are we just going to ask farmers to be concerned about that and let the industrialists do their deals?

When you speak to farmers on the ground in Brazil, it is quite confusing. Smaller farmers do not want anything to do with this deal. This is a deal for big business, big feed-lots and big processors in Brazil to get beef into Europe. The smaller farmers do not want the regulation. They do not have the regulation and they never want to go there. This was a big finding for us when talking to them.

The EU tells us that the deal will bring forward Brazilian farmers but it will not because they do not have the will. They have a target by 2032 to operate a national identification scheme in Brazil but it will never get there because of the logistics and requirements of a system of that scale. There are 3,000 ha, 4,000 ha and 5,000 ha farms with cows out all the time. It just cannot happen. The European Commission tells us it is happening but we have seen it and it cannot happen.

It is something there is not huge awareness of. In our first engagement on a Brazilian farm on the trip, we found out about the diversity of production. We all assume it is all confinement production-type systems and enormous farms but there is huge diversity. Only 8 million of the 238 million cattle are in those confinements. They are effectively the feed-lots. The rest are dispersed among farms that are a lot smaller than even what we have in this country.

One farmer whom we discussed the structure of farms with told us that 60% of the farms in that region had fewer than 200 animals and 80% of those had fewer than 50. A significant number of farms only have four, five or six cows. They are effectively subsistence farms that are milking cows and allowing them to rear the calves. At weanling stage or a little bit older, they go through a process of dealers and marts, then on to mid-feeders and later to the confinements.

How can you credibly certify any product that comes from these confinements, given the journey the animals have made over, potentially, two or three years - we do not know what age they are - before they arrive there? This comes back to the key question. Can you certify anything coming from there based on the audit system the EU is using to determine suitability or otherwise? The reality is you cannot. Unless you have visibility of every day of the animal's life and every treatment it got, you cannot certify a product at the end.

We cannot gamble on jobs in rural Ireland. That is a risk we could be taking here. Someone mentioned in an opening statement that there were 238 million animals in Brazil that there is no trace of. How can we prove they will not end up on our shelves and in our businesses in Ireland? Two hundred and thirty-eight million is some amount with no trace whatsoever of what state or position they are in.

The reality is we cannot. That is the downside of this deal. If it goes through in its current form, those animals will come in and we will have no sight of where they were produced, the standard to which they were produced and what antibiotics or hormones were used to finish them.

Will this affect jobs in rural Ireland?

If it undermines the value of the beef trade or stops that value increasing, it will have an impact. We have a vibrant beef industry in this country. We sell 90% of what we produce abroad. It adds immeasurably to every parish in rural Ireland. We saw in the past ten years that, when beef price and margins were under pressure, it impacted on suckler cow numbers in certain parts of the country and there was a lack of agricultural activity in those areas. If there is no farming in those areas, there will be no local co-op stores, churches, schools, pubs, GAA clubs, rugby clubs, soccer clubs, everything needed to keep a community vibrant. If you do not have the economic activity that agriculture generates, you are struggling. We can see that already, particularly in our schools and GAA clubs.

The next speaker is Deputy Butterly. If any other speakers indicate, they can come in. If a member of the committee indicates, I have to take the member first. Is that all right? Then we will start another round.

Thank you very much, Chair. I appreciate the time because I was not appointed to this committee but I take an active interest in agriculture overall.

I want to alleviate some of the confusion as to the Government's position on Mercosur. The Taoiseach was firm on this, as was the Minister, Deputy Heydon. All of us, at every level - backbench TDs, Ministers, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste - are actively trying to ensure that if or when this Mercosur deal comes in, it will not be by throwing farmers under a bus. We recognise the importance of agriculture and the farming industry. We have also taken on board the public health concerns on this.

I get a terrible case of déjà vu when we talk about Mercosur because it was over 20 years ago, if I remember correctly, that the IFA went out to Brazil and carried out a similar investigation to the one carried out by the Irish Farmers' Journal. I tend to agree with Mr. Gorman. Brazil does not want to change; it wants us to change. That is something that cannot happen. Twenty years ago, they were talking about angel dust and the use of antibiotics in beef. At that time, Brazil was exporting well over 250,000 tonnes of beef into Europe. Brazil exports when it suits. It piggybacked off Argentinian beef because the Argentinians have done an excellent job of marketing their beef in Europe over the past 20 years. The Argentinians have no interest in exporting, however, because they eat beef like we eat bread. It is a core part of their daily diet.

I have been very vocal about my huge concerns in respect of this. I was in Copenhagen last week and both Commissioners were there. I told them that Mercosur cannot go through until we know what the safeguards are. I agree that we cannot foresee what they will be. When you have 238 million cattle roaming around and one factory could possibly kill in one day what our entire national kill will do in a week, that cannot be supervised unless the Brazilian Government is willing to ensure it is supervised. The Brazilians have access to cheap labour and land. They have no intention of controlling or auditing the system. If it does not come from the Brazilians, there is no way we could possibly audit and control that.

The most useful thing that came out in the last week was that, while we sit here and advocate for farmers and rural communities, it gets no hearing in this day and age. We talked about blue tongue and avian flu over the past couple of weeks and it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. However, members of the public prick up their ears when they hear public health concerns that what they are eating and digesting is not good for their bodies or their children's bodies. Only God knows the effects it could have on them in the future.

At European level, Argentinian beef has been associated with Brazilian beef for too long. I remember a time when any time we tried to ban Brazilian beef from coming into Europe, they simply walked the cattle across the border into Uruguay and suddenly we were importing Uruguayan beef. The checks and balances are not in place. We cannot throw farmers under a bus. I will be in Brussels tomorrow. I am going to ask the question-----

The Deputy has 15 seconds.

The Leas-Cathaoirleach needs to be patient. I am getting to it. We have COPA in Europe, Coldiretti in Italy and the French farming organisations. We are batting on our side. The IFA is batting on its side. How do we bring it together? They were wavering but they now seem to be coming back, particularly the French and the Italians. How do we keep this pressure on, and not just from a vocal point of view? Should we be meeting more often at the different levels?

I congratulate the Irish Farmers' Journal and the IFA on their report. I have travelled the world and, unfortunately, I have seen those practices taking place. I worked in Asia and have visited Brazil. I was not surprised by the report, but I see why the IFA and the Irish Farmers' Journal went out there. Desperate times lead to desperate measures.

There are four key factors here. First are the farmers. On Saturday morning, I was on a farm outside Gorey. The man literally put his head in his hands. How much more can farmers take if Mercosur comes through? There is a conveyor belt of young talent leaving our farms and going to Australia on weekly basis. They have given up on the sector because it is one hit after another.

It will have a detrimental effect on this country. It will completely undermine the industry if there is a tsunami of meat coming in here. It is unbelievable.

My background is hospitality. I sat down last night knowing I was coming to the committee. Over my 25 years in the hospitality industry, I bought approximately €5 million worth of meat for six hotels. My pride was to walk into a restaurant or wedding and know exactly where the meat came from - pride was put on the plate. This will affect farmers and the meat industry, but it will also affect our tourism and hospitality industry because we will not be in control of what we are selling.

I simply cannot understand the health factor. This beggars belief. If it was medicine coming in here, would checks be in place? Hand on heart, I feel there would be. If cars were coming in, would checks be in place to ensure they were roadworthy? Yes, 100%. Why are we bringing something in here that our kids, including my two young kids, could be consuming without it being fully checked? As has been clearly said, checks are not in place.

What in God's name is the hurry? Why can we not wait on the audit for the sake of our nation's health? We have waited 25 years already. It was mentioned that 54 out of the 59 agricultural IFA equivalents are in support of what we are doing. Italy and France, two such proud nations in respect of food-----

Can we get the answer?

We have touched on some of the points already. Deputy Butterly asked how we can work together. On our side, we are meeting this committee in our Parliament to outline what we found in Brazil. We work with counterparts, through COPA, across Europe to get them to do the same so that they will lobby their politicians. We will only know what level of success has been achieved when the vote takes place. That will be the ultimate test of whether people are in favour of this. We ask that the committee engage with party members on whatever side of the House to ensure that when this goes through at Parliament level the maximum number of Irish MEPs will vote against it and that at Council level we will stand our ground and oppose this. It is the right thing to do for our industry and country.

Deputy Brennan asked who will farm. If we do not have viable farms, we will not be able to encourage young people to come home and farm. We need incentives to get them home, but we also need viable farms for them to come home to. As a farmer who farms beef and sheep, it sends a message to me and every other farmer that the European Union will not allow the price of beef to elevate to a place where we will be able to make a living on our farms. It is more important for the European Union to have cheap beef, irrespective of the standard, than to allow farmers to be able to make a living on their farms. The message has been sent quite clearly that we will not be compensated. This is a huge deal for big business. Farmers are being sold out and that is unacceptable.

I thank the witnesses for the work they have carried out and the report, and for coming before the committee today to explain it in very easy but also horrifying terms. I refer in particular to the last piece Mr. Gorman mentioned, namely the prospect that the focus is on keeping cheap beef in Europe rather than ensuring our farmers in Ireland can make a living on their farms. I am from a rural constituency, Carlow-Kilkenny. I have farmed. When Mr. Gorman made his remarks, what popped into my brain was my grandad who left Ireland in the early 1900s and farmed in Australia for 30 years, and then came back and bought a farm. That is the farm I live on now.

That might not be a possibility for my children's generation because of the rules, regulations and decisions like this that are being made at a European level. It is vitally important that we stand up for our farmers and our farm families and alongside them, our rural communities, I know for certain. I was at a meeting recently, and my own colleague Councillor Tommy Kinsella in Ballinkillen was so animated he was akin to Deputy Aird in the strength of his argument against Mercosur. I am delighted to have to have this opportunity today to air that on a national forum because the constituents and farmers across Carlow and Kilkenny are horrified that this deal might come in. I would like to publicly state that I stand with them.

Before I run out of time, my question is quite a simple one. Also, just to note I was at the Department of agriculture in France recently, maybe three weeks ago. While France's national parliament might be in disarray because the Government does not have a majority they are universally together on the point that they oppose Mercosur. They are very strong in that regard. I was in Brussels last week and met a number of our MEPs. Without naming names, there certainly is a lack of unity there and a lack of them holding the same position and we certainly need to work on that.

To get to the question, in the programme for Government as Mr. Gorman mentioned, the commitment is to not accept Mercosur in its current form. Is there any form in which Mercosur is acceptable? If there is a form that is acceptable, what is it?

Very simply, take out beef and poultry, and drive on. We are not anti-trade, to be clear, but we cannot have beef and poultry farmers - particularly in this country because more than any country in Europe we export more of our product as a percentage - being used as a bargaining chip for big business. Does Mr. Woods want to come in on a couple of those points?

On similar standards, there is a cost of compliance associated with the very high standards European beef producers adhere to and they know that EU consumers demand that high level of product. It is the right thing to do. Beef farmers have embraced that as regards antimicrobial resistance and taking the advice of vets and not using those antibiotics. Then we go back to the level playing field and similar standards. Mr. Gorman is right. In an exporting nation, we cannot expect to ban all imports but what we can absolutely require is a similar standard and a level playing field because that product is coming in and competing with our product. It is a product that is a lot cheaper with a cost of production that is lot cheaper. If we take the example of here in terms of paying a vet to come out to look at an animal, pay for the antibiotic, the prescription and everything whereas in Brazil, we walked into a store, picked up a can of Coke, a Mars bar and a bottle of Draxxin and out we walked.

That is horrifying.

It is hard to explain that.

It is horrifying.

For the last speaking slot we will go to Deputy Clendennen.

I thank the Chair for obliging me by giving me time because I am a visitor to this committee. I will pick up where the Chair left off. We have seen a debate in these Houses in recent times around the whole area of impacting merchants on the need to improve the quality of antiparasitics. Here we are having a debate on the other side of the Atlantic about antibiotics. It is almost as if last year we were trying to keep the front door in place and we left the back door wide open. I am starting to wonder if there is a back door at all in relation to the varying differences and standards that we are applying here.

I commend the Irish Farmers' Journal representatives on the work they did. Investigative journalism was essentially what they were doing in the best interests of the State and they are serving us very well in that regard. Are they the only journalistic team across the EU that has done this? Obviously, they have shared this with their counterparts in Europe but we are a small island on the west coast. Have other journalistic teams gone over there and done this work the Irish Farmers' Journal has done so that there are more journalists bringing this message back from South America?

I am not aware of any. We have had contact with a lot of other news organisations across Europe during the past two weeks to do interviews and we have done them with countries as far away as Croatia, Sweden, Italy and the UK. The story has spread and it has really been picked up. The human health element has really been picked up and has perked up ears across a lot of Europe as regards that story. In regard to rest of the farm organisations, I know the IFA is working on that.

In regard to the beef coming in, there is a story out there that it will be the offcuts, that it will be frozen, that it will be of the worst quality beef and it will have no impact.

Has the IFA any clarity as to what will be brought into Europe in relation to this beef?

Mr. Damian McDonald, our director general, alluded to a meeting we had with the then Minister for trade and current Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, along with Meat Industry Ireland and the four main beef processors. Their informed view is that the steak cuts, that is, the higher value cuts, will be targeted. To put that in context, we hear people talking down the value and volume of 99,000 tonnes. As we said earlier, that is the equivalent of 4 million cattle from Brazil, treated as they see fit with hormones, antibiotics and whatever else. Those 4 million cattle will then arrive at a meat factory where the steaks will be stripped off them and sent to Europe. A total of 4 million cattle is the equivalent of over twice what we process each year. The 238 million cattle in Brazil are about half of its production capacity, based on the presentations we got at the World Meat Congress from it, if that is the number because how do we, or Brazil, know? Brazil’s view is to say, “Get out of our way. There is a shortage of protein in the world and we are the only ones who can fill that gap. You have stopped and constrained yourselves in Europe from being able to feed yourselves with all of these regulations around hormones and antibiotics. Do not worry, we will feed you and the rest of the world but just get out of our way.”. That is the attitude. Those are the people from whom our EU auditors and decision-makers are prepared to accept self-declarations that the beef meets the sanitary and phytosanitary standards, SPS1.

The health implications have been made clear and I fully appreciate them. From an economic perspective, however, we talk about the farm in rural Ireland. There are probably 100,000 farmers who will be impacted by this. What is the overall economic impact of this right down to the farmer and from farm to fork, whether that be through processing or otherwise? Has the IFA carried out any study in that regard?

In simple terms, a low-level mark is potentially €150 of a cut per animal. That is a low-level mark but, as we know, the line between supply and demand is a fine line. We know there is reduced production across Europe and a good demand in our key markets for beef. We come in at a similar price point to the EU and UK. The rest of the world's beef prices are probably at least €2 or €3 per kilo below that. Once those products start to be offered into the marketplace, however, that starts to set the price. That becomes the problem because we are an exporting country.

I call Deputy Kenny. Will five minutes be enough?

Yes, that is great.

Okay. Everyone will get five minutes. We can go back again if there is time left over.

Antimicrobial resistance is seen by the World Health Organization as being one of the key major factors for world health and development, etc. It has been mentioned as one of the key things in the IFA’s document. The World Health Organization has stated that. Would it be a good idea to try to see if we can present the IFA’s findings to the World Health Organization in respect of this? This is a key problem not only for the consumers in Europe but for the people of Brazil and Argentina who are consuming this product. It is something that needs to be considered.

As we look forward to trying to come to a place where we can get the various countries to come in line to block this deal, in general, there is unanimity in this committee as to where we stand but the problem is that we do not have unanimity from an Irish perspective. We do not have an absolute clear position that Ireland will block the deal. We are all in political parties. We all have structures. My understanding of what happens is that the structure of the political party makes a decision and says, “Now guys, here is how it works. You are whipped and here is what you do.”. We all come into the Chamber and Government TDs vote on things that they might not always like and Opposition TDs vote on things we might not always like. We are whipped to do it. Why is the Government not whipping its MEPs to vote against this deal? That needs to be asked of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste.

With regard to the Government’s position, the Government needs to be 100% clear on it. We are clear that it is against this deal. We have said it already that it is in the programme for Government, which has between agreed between the two parties and the Independents who support them. My understanding is that they are 100% opposed to it, particularly the Independents. They need to stand up in their conversations with the Government they support to express clearly where they stand.

The Minister for agriculture and the Minister for trade, Deputy Helen McEntee, need to be quite clear on it as well. For me, if they can be whipped into it, they should be whipped into it. There is no reason that any Irish MEP should vote for this deal. I know a number of MEPs in the Dublin area have said they are in favour of it. That is fine but any MEP who goes for election down through the country will pay a price when they come back in front of the electorate the next time around if they do not vote against this deal in its current form.

For it to be acceptable to us, agriculture has to be taken out of it. If agriculture is taken out of it, we are going back to a new deal and a new drawing board. So be it. It is not our responsibility that a flawed mechanism and a flawed deal was agreed by the European Commission. It made a mistake by including agriculture and using it as a bargaining chip. It should not have done that.

To be clear on the political opportunities to block the deal, as members are aware, the European Commission has split this deal into a temporary trade deal and a longer-term partnership agreement. The purpose of that was to avoid the need for this deal to be ratified by every parliament in every member state, which was the case for previous trade deals. That opportunity has been removed. I know a number of MEPs are challenging that and other aspects of it, and we will see how that works out.

The first opportunity to block this is at the member state level. The member states will have to vote on it first. It needs a qualified majority to succeed, which is 65%, so 35% on the other side can block it. That is not easy to achieve. The first thing we need is for our own Government to be highly committed, and then to honour what it said it would do in the programme for Government, which is to work with like-minded countries. That is one opportunity.

The second opportunity will come when the Parliament votes on it, which is likely to be in the new year. At that point, we will be looking for every political party to certainly advise their MEPs - those who are in political parties - to oppose the deal in line with the Government commitments. The Irish Farmers’ Journal last week carried a grid where most MEPs, though not all, gave an indication of what their position would be. Most said “No”, some were “Maybe”, and some said they were going to vote for it. Members can look at that and see what they said.

I am conscious that Deputy Kenny's party put a motion in front of this House, which I understood the Government did not oppose. I think it is clear that the will of the Oireachtas, our Parliament - or the Dáil, in any event - is that it is opposed to this deal. I hope that would carry a bit of sway as well in terms of the Government’s position on the Mercosur deal.

I have not heard that they were not opposing it or that they were not supporting Mercosur. As far as I am concerned, all the political parties in the Dáil are supporting it.

We did not get a clear answer.

That is just my opinion. It is difficult. We are the politicians. We are all members of different parties. We are the people who know.

I am worried that we did not get a proper answer last week.

I was at that debate and stayed until the very end of it. I did not hear any negative talk.

Nobody should be sitting on a fence any more, but they are.

We are told all the Independents are supporting it. If they are all supporting it, then the Government will be supporting it because it depends on the Independents. I call Senator Boyhan.

I am not going to waste any more of my time. At this stage, we have heard loud and clear the concerns. I am going to give my time over to the witnesses to make the big ask here and now. I heard Mr. Gorman's comments on MEPs and the price they will pay. That is a very powerful message. It is only five words, but you can make a sentence pretty tight and pretty clear. Mr. Gorman should make the ask or tell us what his ask will be of the political leadership of this country, that is, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for agriculture. The time is his. He has four and a half minutes.

I will distill it down to three points. I will go through them. There is what needs to happen in the summary of the report. As decision time approaches, the Government and MEPs must honour their commitment to European consumers and farmers on the standards of food allowed into the European Union. We need a commitment from the Government to oppose this deal and to do what we have said many times here, and what has been the ask of the members of the committee.

Will it do that? Will it work with like-minded countries even at this late stage to try to achieve a blocking minority? Mr. McDonald earlier asked that the Government write to the European Commission to make sure that the report on the recall of the beef in the last week or ten days is published. That has to be published before any vote or further decisions are taken on Mercosur. The MEPs should refuse to have any vote taken on Mercosur until that is done. Neither we nor the members of the committee in this room have the power to call for that. However, the MEPs can and they should insist at this stage that that happens. The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister for agriculture, the Minister for trade should insist that happens.

Officials from the European Commission should be called to appear before this committee and they should be asked to account for themselves as to why this is going through and why the standards we are asked to produce beef and poultry to in this country are being flagrantly disregarded when they are dealing with farmers in Brazil. Why are the traceability protocols for animals here being disregarded for Brazil? My understanding is that in Brazil, almost up to the point of slaughter, an animal does not have to be tagged. The boys saw this when they were out there. They found animals in livestock sales and in factories that did not have tags in their ears. Those are my three requests.

I ask Mr. Woods to outline his key asks. He is sharp and articulate and writes stories every day. I ask him to say it to us in a few sentences now.

It has to be paused until we get that investigation of the recall back on the table. That has to be published before there is any more negotiation. The people who are voting on this need all the information on that recall. The European Commission has always kicked back to us that we need to be 100% sure on checks and balances. Last week's recall shows that is not good enough.

Senator Boyhan earlier asked what the benefits of this deal are. Food safety and the health of EU citizens is non-negotiable no matter how many billions of euro this trade deal is worth to car companies, white goods manufacturers and technology companies. The health of our EU citizens is non-negotiable and we need to hold that sacrosanct to what the EU is all about. We have done that since the EU was formed as regards making sure that the health of EU citizens is guaranteed. This shows that we are on shaky ground here.

In answer to the Senator's question, I have two specific asks. The first is to write to the Commission on the report which I think the committee has agreed to do. The second is to invite the Commission officials in here. We would love to be in here when they are here as well to challenge them on what they did about the 2024 report. What happened then? They said that Brazil gave a commitment to an action plan. What action plan? The product has turned up 12 months later in food that is being eaten by EU citizens after it gave a commitment in 2024 to deal with oestradiol. It did not do so.

We did have the-----

The Commission officials need to explain the audits. What has happened since 2024?

The witnesses have made a strong and compelling argument today. I am from a small village called Skeaghvasteen on the Kilkenny-Carlow border and everywhere I turn I see agriculture. I see beef, tillage, horses and absolutely everything. Within one and a half miles of me, every single part is there. There are 170,000 jobs in the agriculture industry in Ireland. We exported about €20 billion worth of goods last year. The Irish agricultural sector is hugely important to me as a rural TD.

The witnesses could not have been any clearer in the report they have done on the Mercosur deal regarding the impact that this could potentially have on human health if the safeguards are not there and in relation to farmers' income. There is a real risk that family farms and farming viability could be impacted significantly with the current structure of the Mercosur deal.

Mr. Gorman spoke about the viability of family farms and incentivising people to come home and farm.

I would look at it a different way. I would be saying we need to incentivise those people to stay and farm. Macra na Feirme was in a couple of weeks ago. Only 4% of farmers in Ireland are under the age of 35. If something like this comes in and becomes a dagger in the heart of rural Ireland, I do not want to see that figure go from 4% to 3% or 2% because we currently export food produce for 50 million people and we will see that reduce and reduce again over the coming years. If the Mercosur deal were to go through, what impact will it have on all farmers, particularly young farmers in terms of entry to the market and the sustainability and viability of staying in the beef sector?

There is no question, as I pointed out point earlier, that this sends a negative message to anybody who wants to come home, particularly for livestock farming or poultry farming. We have focused mainly on beef today, but poultry is hugely impacted as well, particularly on the antibiotic side, given what our poultry farmers have to do compared with poultry farmers in Brazil. To me, it is sending a message that the price of beef will be capped and beef prices will not be allowed to appreciate to a level that will give farmers a living. As I said earlier, I waited all my life as a beef farmer for the prices we have had this year. We have lost so many farming families in the beef sector over the last ten years because we were not getting a viable price. This is going to undermine our market. We cannot allow it to happen.

I am massively proud of the industry that we have in this country. When we go to meetings, we hear about the cost of regulation and the cost of doing business. To be clear, farmers are proud of the product that we produce and we can stand over it. If we send it into any market in the world, whether it is a dairy product, a baby powder, a beef product, meat or poultry, it will stand up beside the best in the world. Not only does it deliver for farmers, it delivers for rural Ireland and people who work in the business, who are properly paid and properly treated. That does not happen in Brazil at processor or farmer level. The way we produce our product also delivers environmentally. That cannot be said of Brazil either. We have not homed in on those points to the same extent. They are important as well. All round, we tick every box as farmers in terms of how we produce our beef. That is not done out there and farmers are being asked to try to be viable and compete against that product.

We do not need 99,000 tonnes of that beef to come in. One of the CEOs of the meat companies told me that if he is trying to sell beef in Germany in the morning and four container loads of this stuff come in a lot cheaper than he can sell it, straight away those four container loads are going to undermine his ability to sell Irish beef into that market. Whatever amount comes in, it is going to have a negative impact on the sector. That cannot be overlooked.

I am tight on time. Mr. Woods had a specific ask, which was to pause the Mercosur deal until the recall report can be studied in detail. That is a specific and fair ask. I will take that message back to the Government loud and clear. A wise man said begin with the end in mind. There is a specific ask here. I will take it back to the Government. I will raise it with the Taoiseach this afternoon and at our parliamentary party meeting tomorrow night to try to fight for rural Ireland, which we are all part of, and for the beef farmers.

On the point as regards the implications, all that farmers want to know is that the Government and the EU have their back. This deal would say something completely different to me.

We have been around the Houses. Mr. Gorman touched on it, but I was going to ask if the IFA group saw any deforestation or any of that craic going on? There are other things here, and rightly so. We have concentrated on the health of the people, and antimicrobial resistance is the major issue there. If there is one thing that people are enthused about, it is the health of the planet and the future of the planet. I am a farmer, as I said, and I am in ACRES. I cannot cut a thistle until 1 July. From what we hear, rainforests are being flattened out there. Nothing will get people's backs up as much as that because they are genuinely concerned about the planet. We need to stress that not only are these cattle being treated the way they are, with hormones and no traceability, but a lot of them are being reared on ground that was created from rainforests. Did the witnesses see any of that going on?

We were not near rainforests, but it was on our minds before we left because that has been reported widely. We were keeping an eye out for it. We did see some fires burning, but we decided it was probably just lightning or whatever.

We did come across some fields that had been cleared purposely. There was still chopped down timber in the field. That was a small area and we do not know whether it was agreed or not. What we were told on one farm was that they were being monitored by satellite and they are not allowed to clear even one tree now. Again, we do not know if that is true. We did see land that was cleared and being burned. The shrub was being burned. That flew in the face of that.

It has decreased but it still taking place in other parts. It is being clamped down on in Mato Grosso but in other parts of Brazil it is still occurring to a great extent.

To add to that, the Mercosur deal itself allows for deforestation to take place until 2030. While the lads did not go up into the Amazon rainforest, the deal itself specifically allows for deforestation to take place for the next five years. On a whole range of issues, this deal does not tick the boxes, except for big business outside of agriculture. That is the point we are continuing to make. It should not be the case that we carry the price for that.

Senator Daly is correct. We focused in on two key areas, the most substantive one being traceability. If you do not have that, you cannot have any other assurances. The second was how antibiotics have been used.

Deforestation continues to be a huge problem in Brazil. How can they certify if they do not know where the animals were before they arrived at the factor gate? What is the disincentive based on the current Mercosur requirements? Zero. With the beef that is coming in here currently, to meet the supposed standards all someone has to do is certify that the animal was on their confinement rather than someone else's, which is in the middle of a cleared Amazon area. There is no way. In fact, if we continue with this approach, no different than Deputy Kenny's point in relation to AMR, effectively what the Mercosur trade agreement is doing is validating Brazil's approach to all of these key areas, by accrediting Brazilian beef and allowing Brazil to claim it is capable of producing beef to the EU standard and giving it that status symbol. At the same time, there are environmental issues, animal welfare issues, which we did not touch on, traceability issues and slave labour issues. The list is endless. What is being done here by approving this Mercosur trade deal with beef and poultry in it is validating the Brazilian approach to all of these issues at the expense of Irish and EU farmers.

That is a good point. I was discussing this with somebody the other day. We are talking about equivalent standards. It has been said here that it seems we are being asked to bow to Brazil's standards when we have a very high standard. If we are going to send cars over to Brazil, would they accept them without seat belts? They would not. It is not the same standard, from what we have seen anyway.

The bottom line with this trade deal is that there is no comparison between the high standards in Ireland and throughout the EU and the standards in Brazil. It is like black and white or chalk and cheese. This is a bad deal. We have to do everything humanly possible to support our farmers, the industry and the health and well-being of our people because that is what it is going to boil down to. It is nearly impossible to understand why this has been allowed to reach this stage. We should all be fighting as one. The IFA has the support of all rural people, all rural TDs and all farmers on this one. We have to keep fighting it to the very end. All our MEPs must come on board. Anyone that has any doubt should read the facts as presented.

Since the findings were made, have the Italians come back with anything stronger than sitting on the fence?

It was they who highlighted that the frozen beef coming in had hormones. Have they come back any stronger on their commitment to what way they are going? Since the recall of the beef has there been a stop on beef coming in or is it still coming in? Was it just that beef that was recalled but everything else is still going ahead?

Some members asked about the cost of the deal and what it will cost Irish farmers. I do not think a cost can be put on it. We cannot put a cost on human health. We do not know what the cost will be to us. All Deputies and Senators here need to go back to their party meetings and they need to demand that their MEPs are whipped, whether they represent Dublin or wherever. At the end of the day it is about their health too and the health of their families and their kids. I sure as hell do not want to be giving my children, who all love their beef, meat from we do not know where. I know that already on the shelves in a supermarket in Kilkenny there is corned beef in a tin that states it is from Brazil. There is oxtail soup and other soups but we have to go on the company's website to know what is in it. We need to have proper labelling. After Christmas we will speak more on this. I would not accept this deal.

We can send emails to the Commission to try to get it to come over here but it is not going to come as quickly as we want it to. If everything goes against us, what happens then? Will it be as we did with the milk previously? Will we walk around the supermarkets to make sure nobody buys this meat? We need to send a clear message to Europe that if it goes ahead, against all health advice, here is what will happen. A message needs to be sent to Europe that this is what will happen and that it needs to start listening to us and speaking up, not only for Irish health but for world health, or this is what will happen.

I will address some of these points and Mr. McDonald may also wish to speak. To be clear, we do not know the Italian position. The Prime Minister seems to be very much in favour of it. Italy has a massive trade surplus with the South American countries. Germany, Italy and Spain are the three big countries that have huge trade surpluses. The trade surplus for the rest of Europe is way down. The Italian farming community and farming organisations are against the deal. The president of COPA, Massimiliano Giansanti, is from Italy. It is totally opposed to the deal as are all of the farm organisations bar four of the 58, which represent niche sectors that might benefit from this, and they are ambivalent about it. We do not know what way the Italians are going to vote.

We are fairly clear at the moment that the French will vote against it but until they actually walk down the aisles and cast their votes we cannot be certain what will happen. All I know is that if I were an Irish MEP I would very slow to vote for this deal, or I would vote for it feeling very uneasy. It would be the same if I were any public representative, be it the Seanad or the Dáil. I would be very uneasy about supporting this deal in public even though I do not have a say in it. I would pay a price when I went back for election. It would always be put against me when I went back for election.

Beef is still coming in from the Mercosur countries at present. Our ask is that the deal would be paused until we get the report in January. This is one of our key asks. We have to be realistic. This is the very least that we want. As for what will happen if it goes through, we do not know. I still believe that when it goes to the European Parliament and we go through all of the issues we have spoken about here today, the public health issue is number one. The economics for the farming sector and who will farm the land in the next generation is a big issue. The environmental conditions on-----

We have run out of time and I call the next speaker, who is Deputy Cooney.

We have had an excellent debate here today. We are elected by people in our constituencies to listen to their voices and come here to outline them. It is important to do this and sometimes in the past it has not been done. It is important to listen to the people and what they have to say. Mr. Gorman mentioned that viable farms are important to encourage young people to continue farming. We are well aware, and it was mentioned here, of the small number of young people going into farming. We do not want to interfere with this. We want to improve it and drive it forward. Why interfere with something that is going well at present? We are well aware that beef farmers struggled for a long time. Now we have a good system in place that is working well. Why would we want to interfere with it? If we support this deal my honest belief is that it will ruin farming in this country. I do not want to see this happening. What do the witnesses think will be the consequences for farming in our country if this deal goes through?

For me the consequences will be an undermining of the viability of the beef sector in particular. It will also kick into the dairy sector. Without a viable beef sector we do not have a dairy sector. Dairy bred calves have to be reared and finished as beef animals. It will also affect the tillage sector, unquestionably, and this sector is struggling. It will have a knock-on impact on poultry. We are talking about the equivalent of millions of chickens being imported here, mainly in the form of breast meat. This is the most valuable part of the chicken. These deals are done in a way that will provide cheap food for consumers but with a flagrant disregard for the standards to which it is produced and it is not good enough.

I want to make a point in response to Deputy Newsome Drennan's question on what happens afterwards. The reality of the situation is that people tend to focus on the meat in the shop shelves, and she gave an example, but at least the consumer can see this. Where the market gets undermined first is in the food service sector, where labelling is not as transparent. When we travel across the EU 27 it gets less and less transparent as we go in food service. People can bring the meat into this sector straight away, including steak cuts and valuable cuts. This deal is calculated at 99,000 tonnes of carcase weight equivalent. The equivalent of this carcase can be in whatever form of meat people want. This is where the Mercosur countries will target the high-end cuts to increase the overall value of their sector.

In terms of what can be done if the deal is ratified by the member states and the European Parliament, we will be in deep trouble. We will then rely on the audit system. It is very hard to have confidence in the audit system and we saw what happened in 2024 and what was found 12 months later. We have to be realistic. Now is the time the member states and MEPs need to stand up. COPA, the European farm body, is having a protest in Europe on 18 December. This is one of the key issues that is part of it. We will do everything we can in the next number of weeks to block this. Remember the President of the European Commission is booked on a flight on 20 December. This is the timeline. We have to stop it happening and give much more time for reflection and consideration of what was found by Mr. Woods, Mr. Bourke and Mr. Doyle and the food recall. We cannot ignore it. The Commission is driving to get this over the line before there is a proper exposition of these issues.

I agree with the witnesses. Tillage farming is already on its knees, unfortunately. Their view is that if the deal goes through a lot more will be affected across the board in farming in the country. This is a serious concern.

Two minutes each for the next speakers, starting with Deputy Butterly. That is it, because other people have to come in as well.

I thank the Chair and will be brief.

I will be very nice.

I will share my time.

I call Deputy Butterly, who has two minutes.

Mr. Gorman mentioned that for once, what is rare is wonderful and the processors and the farming community are together on this. It would be a great idea to hear from the processors themselves, whether it is here in the committee or not. Has the IFA engaged across Europe with European food service providers and retailers, because they are very influential? In France they have Carrefour and there is also Esselunga, Coop and Coop Italia; they have the whole kit and caboodle in Europe. They wield as much power as the car industry when they are added together. Has there been active engagement with the food service industry and the retailers, not just at home but abroad, by the witnesses or their equivalents in the different countries?

On the last point, we have, through COPA and to be clear, when there was a demonstration in Brussels on this earlier in the year, not alone was it supported by the farming organisations, it also was supported by the business communities. Many of the environmental NGOs were against this deal as well. Many people are very unhappy about the fact that this seems to have been railroaded through by the very top of the Commission. I totally agree with the points Mr. McDonald made about how we go about addressing this.

We and An Taisce actually agree on this.

It is very important to say that though we talked about this being a rural issue, it is also an urban issue. Following on from Deputy Clendennen, if we start losing jobs in the agricultural sector, we will lose jobs in the processing sector and therefore we will have decreases in employment in other sectors as well. Let us remember that in rural areas, we tend to spend our money in our local towns. It is not just rural versus urban; this is going to affect everybody if it goes through.

I have a huge issue with how this has played out. Ursula von der Leyen, according to all media reports, has a aeroplane booked to go over and do this agreement on 20 December. Why is she doing this if we have had a serious recall in the past number of weeks and the audit is not even out? Why is she doing this when the IFA and Irish Farmer's Journal had an excellent, damning report? Why is she doing this while this subject is being debated as we sit here? Is her mind made up? Why is she doing this while, in our witnesses’ own words, they can walk in to a shop in Brazil and buy a can of Coke and some antibiotics? To me, this just simply beggars belief. Is she giving two fingers to every farmer in Wexford and Wicklow? Is she giving two fingers to every farmer in Ireland? Is she giving two fingers to the European Parliament? This has to be called for what it is; it is wrong. Ursula von der Leyen is supposed to go out there to make an agreement, and it is as plain as night follows day that this is wrong for the health of every single person in Ireland and Europe. We are going to be flooded with hormone and antibiotic-filled meat. How can we allow that to happen?

To be clear, she will say she is doing it because the European Commission was given a job by the Council to conclude a trade deal with the Mercosur countries. This has been ongoing for 25 years. This has finally culminated with fulfilling the ask of her and of the Commission by the Council, which is made up of prime ministers from around Europe-----

It is being debated today; we all know that.

-----which our Taoiseach is part of. She is doing it because they feel in Europe that there is an absolute need to have this trade deal done. A number of European economies are struggling and this is one of the biggest trade deals that has been ever negotiated in the history of the world. Our issue with it is they have sold out farmers to conclude it, and that is not right. The pressure has to come back on them. We cannot allow the European Union to continue to negotiate trade deals. We have the Australia and Canada deals and it is looking at a deal with India. It has the trade deals - and this has not been spoken about today - that have been negotiated by the United Kingdom, that will bring beef into the United Kingdom and push United Kingdom beef, or our beef, onto the shelves in Europe.

It is a merry-go-round of trade deals where agriculture has been sold out. That is why she is doing it. Those are the reasons why this deal should be rejected, because it is flawed.

Mr. Gorman mentioned this is one of the largest trade deals ever in the history of Europe. Has there been any research done on whether if we make it more compatible to ourselves and beef and poultry is removed from it, it is still a really substantial financial deal? Would it still be viable for Europe to have a Mercosur deal minus those elements?

Of course it would. In the general scheme of things, it would still be a massive deal. However, the issue is the Mercosur countries had beef as a top priority in the negotiations.

Okay.

Before this, one of the reasons this trade deal did not go through after 25 years was because the Mercosur countries themselves messed it up, really. When Bolsonaro took over he would not give environmental commitments and lots of things happened over there. It will be interesting to see for example if the safeguards that are being debated in the Parliament at the moment are changed and dropped. If so, that might cause a wobble to the Mercosur countries around the whole deal.

Absolutely, we could take beef and poultry out of this deal and it would still achieve an awful lot of what is intended.

Should that not be a cause of concern for the Commission? This deal could still progress in a really positive way?

It could even pause the beef and poultry element and proceed with the rest of the deal, and we would go on the flight with Ursula von der Leyen ourselves if necessary.

Fantastic. That is great news to hear.

The Deputy got her trip for the year.

It strikes me as a classic example of recognising the price of something but the value of nothing. Have our witnesses’ opposite numbers, such as farm organisations in Poland, Italy and France engaged in the political system in the same way? They have. That is fantastic.

In terms of labelling, I know as a consumer that if I have an option in the supermarket to pick up a piece of beef – and my butcher only sells local beef and that is where I always purchase my beef – it will be labelled Brazilian or Argentinian. If this deal goes through - and I sincerely hope it does not, I am completely opposed to it - is there an option for European countries to insist that it say on menus that this beef is from a Mercosur country, whether Brazil or Argentina? I know as a consumer, if I went in to sit down at a restaurant, even if I wanted beef, I would not be purchasing that.

If An Taisce is in agreement with the witnesses, that must be historic. We have talked about health and safety, the economy and farmers viability. As regards the environmental side, we see world leaders go to COP and we talk about deforestation and so on, but the witnesses' images from Brazil are literally black and white. There is bleakness, deprivation and poor land. Then we look at Ireland and see grass-fed rich pasture, pride in animal welfare and how our focus is on sustainability. We look at Europe and what it talks about in relation to farm to fork and sustainability practices which reduce the impact on climate and biodiversity, food security and fair returns. What cost-benefit analysis has been done in relation to Mercosur? We have discussed everything else but environmentally we have not homed in on it today. Have they done that? This deal seems to be totally contradictory to everything that we look at in relation to our environmental practices in Europe today.

As the Deputy knows, there are regulatory requirements for the labelling of beef within the EU and that extends in this country to the point of sale for any food service outlet. That is why we see the signs on the menus. Clearly that would be a requirement. The difficulty is that would not really provide a safeguard. If we look at the capacity of an awful lot of the EU consumers to purchase the products they would like to purchase and their economic ability to do that, we have seen all of the Eurobarometer studies that say that whereas EU citizens like and demand higher standards for welfare, food safety, environment and all of that, the very same Eurobarometer shows that when it comes to it, consumers in the EU are not prepared to pay any more.

The difficulty is when it comes to the price point. Where much of our beef is being sold in the bigger populated areas across Europe and in the UK, price becomes king over the label. While we might like to think otherwise and can identify that consumers demand higher standards, unfortunately, consumers will always be tempted when there is an offering at a lower price point. People have to feed their families, and the economic realities of daily life kick in. The EU has a role in the context of making sure that this cheaper, below-standard product is not put out there. As the recall has shown, half of it has been eaten by European citizens unknowingly.

I am completely against the Mercosur deal as it stands in relation to food. I met the IFA in Monaghan yesterday. To return to what Deputy Callaghan said, it is all going to be down to the price point in the major European cities. I come from County Monaghan and others here come from Kilkenny, Carlow, Louth or wherever. We all know the importance of food safety, but it is going to be about the price point when it comes to the big cities. When people seek Irish steak in the supermarket, they it is traceable and hormone free. We have the best welfare standards and our animals are fed on grass. Steak from one of the Mercosur countries, however, contains every sort of hormone and chemical. It may look better because the animal it came from was treated with hormones. That is the problem we are going to have.

I said to the IFA that it is about educating consumers about whether they want quality products. The problem is that in the big population centres across Europe, when consumers see steak from Mercosur countries next to Irish, French or Italian steak produced to European standards, it will be very difficult for them. Most of us here are against the Mercosur deal. We have to put pressure on. Hopefully, we can succeed in convincing the powers that be that this is not in the best interests of Irish farming.

I grew up helping on farms owned by my relatives. My uncles did not know about animal welfare. The latter only started 30 years ago. I remember being in cattle crushes with vets at that stage when they were testing. New rules were coming in all the time. Those rules were always a bugbear from my uncles. We have got to the stage where we have traceability and quality dairy, chicken and beef products that are exported to countries all around the world. We need to protect that.

I was parachuted in, so I thank the clerk. Aided and abetted by the Irish Farmers' Journal, the IFA has done phenomenal work from a public awareness point of view. I am totally opposed to the agricultural element of this deal. From a public health awareness perspective, it is critical that we get the message out. As previous speakers stated, people in large urban areas will not know what they are consuming, particularly as the consumption of ultra-processed ready meals is increasing exponentially. People are time poor and will not be aware of the public health concerns. This is probably budget related, but does the IFA have any public relations campaigns coming in that space? Dare I say it, fearmongering is going to be required to turn housewives, househusbands or whoever is responsible for preparing the meals or who goes around the supermarket with the trolley. The book Farmageddon was written 14 or 15 years ago. It was explosive. Ultra-Processed People is a book written by Chris van Tulleken. There is a section in it that ties in directly with the evidence of what is going into the Brazilian beef. This should feature in the IFA's PR campaign to turn the heads of consumers. Does the IFA have anything coming in that regard?

Our report has been picked up by the mainstream media. We were on "Morning Ireland" on a number of occasions over the past number of weeks. Hopefully, our message is hitting home.

We can just deal with facts at the moment. The facts are that Brazilian production standards are not at a similar level to those in Ireland or the EU. We hope that consumers and everybody else will see that and will apply pressure. This is a political battle for the next couple of weeks. It is important that everybody is well informed of the facts. That is what this report is all about.

We have to be conscious that this should not come down to educating the public in relation to the standards that Brazilian beef is produced to. We have to be acutely aware of the potential threat to how beef is viewed. The reality is that there is an obligation on the EU Commission to ensure that the food that is allowed to be sold within the EU meets the standards demanded by citizens. We do not believe it is appropriate to engage in scaremongering about the quality of beef, what may be in it or the broader implications. This is an issue for the EU Commission, which has reacted to EU citizens' demands on how food should be produced, how hormones should be taken out of beef production and how antibiotics should be used and, in particular, how their use should be reduced. The obligation rests with the Commission to ensure that no citizen of EU is exposed to what they have been exposed to with the beef that is currently being recalled.

Let us think about what the Brazilians were required to do in that scenario. They put in place an action plan that effectively said that they would not send beef from female animals to Europe because the hormone found is used to treat female cows. The only thing they had to do at the point of slaughter was decide whether the animal was male or female and they got that wrong. How can we trust what they say about steers or young bulls, which could potentially come from 500 farms, of which, we think, only three are eligible, when they could not even differentiate between the males and females going into the factory that was producing beef to send to Europe? EU consumers are still being asked to believe the Brazilian producers and auditors who say they are happy with the certification.

That validates my point on educating the consumer. Even if it is scaremongering, the witnesses' exposé has proven it as fact. My background is in healthcare. In terms of the long-term consequences, there is also an implication for the pharmaceutical industry. Loath though I am to say it, the reality is that there is no money in healthy people. That is what gains the public's attention.

I thank Deputy Toole for saying that.

I have two points to make in response to Deputy Toole's comments. We accept her point on increasing awareness. In fairness, Professor Martin Cormican and Dr. Patrick Wall, who are public health experts, have been very strong on what they found here. The people who need to be convinced are those whose responsibility it is to protect EU citizens, namely the members of the EU Commission. Based on the evidence we have seen, it is very hard to be confident about that.

There was a lot of talk about what political parties are supporting this deal. Opposition Mercosur is part of the programme for Government. If it was not part of the programme for Government, I would not have exercised voted for the Ceann Comhairle or the Taoiseach. If opposing Mercosur had not been in the programme for Government, I would not have done that. It is in the programme for Government and it cannot be reneged on.

I listened to everything that has been said. There is no point in me repeating it. I thank everyone for their contributions. I have to say - although I stand to be corrected - that this is the busiest committee in the Dáil. There is no question about that. Why is that? It is because people are incensed that we have got to this situation whereby we are now talking about Mercosur. This is going on years, and it is such a pity that it has come to where it is today. I wonder about some of the nonsense. Someone said that the Brazilians have stopped cutting down the rainforest. The EU has said that if the rainforest is cut down, it will not take timber involved. If land cleared of rainforest is then put in to grass and cattle are grazed on it, the EU has also said that it will not take in that beef. Did people ever hear such nonsense in all their lives?

I am so disappointed that this is how low we have stooped as regards the protection of our industry. For the first time in over 30 years, the farming community is getting a lift because of beef prices. I have been saying to farmers that they should not apologise for the prices they are getting for cattle in the marts.

What they are getting is what they should have been getting 30 years ago. The prices were suppressed and suppressed until we lost over 200,000 good farmers - beef people - out of the industry. There are over 100,000 beef farmers in this country. We have to do this today and protect them in this forum. This is the Parliament, where they send us to represent their views. We now have a tillage industry that is under huge pressure. We know what will happen to the poultry sector if this happens. We know what is going to happen to the beef if sector this happens. Pork will be next. It behoves us as politicians to stand up and convince those people out there not to support Mercosur. As a country, we have to give proper reasons for that.

Speaking to people at a mart the other day, the one thing they were all asking is why there were rules for them but not for other people. We all are open to inspections. None of us is giving out. I do not want my Bord Bia inspection but I have to do it to comply. I am watching the same as everyone. We do it because we want to do things right, but we cannot cope any longer if we see other people getting away with this and bringing stuff into this country, competing with us. I do not want to hear about whether it is marked or whatever it is on the shelf. I just do not want it on the shelf. I think it is totally wrong. It is a bad day, not just for the Irish farmer, but for the overall EU, because if we go down this road and start this, we will unravel the whole thing that has been very good to Ireland through the years. I have benefited from it as a farmer. I will leave the last word to the president of the IFA. I thank everyone again for coming.

We have an industry that we are massively proud of. How we produce our animals, the standard to which they are produced, the way people who work in the industry are looked after, and how the industry delivers economically and environmentally all stands up and ticks those boxes. This report has been done. Fearmongering was mentioned. This report is factual and stands on its own merits. There is nothing in it that we cannot stand over. Serious consideration has to be given to the report by everybody in this room and everybody who has stood for public office. Value is what these people stand for.

There are a number of requests. Maybe the committee could see a way to doing this. It has said it will write to the European Commission and see that the report is published before any further votes are taken on Mercosur. We would also like to see, if possible, the Commission called in here to account for itself on this deal. Obviously, we would like the commitment in the programme for Government to be honoured and that the committee would work with the party leaders to see that that happens. Pausing the deal is another key ask. The committee members here should talk to their party leaders and let them know what went on here today. Let them know the seriousness of the situation. It is really worrying.

The Leas-Chathaoirleach outlined how he was in a local livestock mart and how concerned farmers were on the ground about this. It is an issue that is not going to go away regardless of whether the deal is passed. We cannot sit back and countenance a situation where this deal, in its current form with agriculture included, is passed.

I particularly thank the three lads who went to Brazil. They were not going on a trip to Dublin or Cork. They were going into the wild west. They were putting their own personal safety at risk by doing a trip like that. For the three lads to do that was extremely courageous. It was easy for us to organise it in the IFA and tell them to go. We did not go. They went. I give a huge thanks to them for that.

For the committee to have us in here today for this length of time shows how seriously the members take this issue.

It is a special meeting.

I appreciate that. The committee having us in here on this issue is important. It sends a good message to farmers and people around the country that at least this committee cares about the well-being of agriculture. It would also be important that some form of a statement be issued from the committee about this meeting.

I compliment the Leas-Chathaoirleach on how he has chaired the meeting. I would love to be here some day when there are two William Airds in the room, one trying to Chair the other.

To be fair, Senator Paraic Brady is a member of the committee and he told me he would be delayed. I want to give him a couple of seconds.

I welcome the witnesses. Everybody knows where I stand on the Mercosur trade deal. I want to clarify again that this deal is not just two or three years in the making, but 25 years. We have asked the Mercosur countries to come up to a standard that is acceptable within the EU. It is unfortunate that, in those 25 years, they have not even come up two grades when they needed to come up 15. That is where we are at.

We are talking about traceability, and we are talking about hormones being used. How much of the beef coming into Europe at this time is actually safe? Really and truly, there are no standards in some of these countries. That is the question that needs to be asked. We are importing beef that is being boned out in our factories here. Is it safe? Do we have a regulatory authority that is fit to actually go to see if that beef is safe or not? I have questions over what we have seen over the last number of weeks. We have to be serious about this. If we want to protect food and the people who eat the food, surely to God it has to be produced to some standard.

I agree with what the president of the IFA said. This Mercosur trade deal needs to be suspended indefinitely at this moment in time until certain aspects of it are adhered to. The first aspect is that the countries over there have to get their act together. We cannot accept this into any food chain in Europe, let alone our own. It is not acceptable and we should not stand over it as a country. I am a proud beef farmer and as the Leas-Chathaoirleach said, we produce beef and lamb to the highest standards. We adhere to all the rules and regulations. For the first time in a long while, we have actually been getting paid for our product over the last 18 months. That is only a just reward for the product we produce as farmers in this country. We all have to stand together on this and say that enough is enough, this is not acceptable and we are not accepting it as a nation.

On behalf of the committee, I thank the representatives for coming here today.

This has been a good meeting. I acknowledge the attendance of the president and his colleagues on what is such an important issue. He suggested that the Commission be invited in. I take it that is agreed because it is hugely important.

It is, and the letter has been sent.