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The Rural Independent Group is proposing to call a debate on the issue of the Mercosur deal next week.
“I’m on the business committee and we’re hoping that we will force the Government at the committee to put a motion forward,” Independent TD Mattie McGrath told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“In that case we’ll be able to debate it, speak to it, have a question and answer session on it and a vote.”
He had the backing of fellow TDs Michael Healy-Rae, Danny Healy-Rae and Michael Collins.
“We’ve learnt one very significant thing – the Government are accepting this deal. They keep saying there’s a positive aspect to it.
We’re a farming community and the politician who would forget that would forget it at his peril,” Michael Healy-Rae said.
All the public representatives said that farmers had contacted them and were furious over the proposed deal.
“Kerry farmers have the phone reddened, because we’ve been raising the plight of suckler farmers in Kerry for three years now and when you have a minister today saying that we must evaluate this deal in totality – I say to him that he’s not in touch with what’s happening on the ground in Kerry or in the west of Ireland,” Danny Healy-Rae said.
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