Danny Healy-Rae: Demands Department clarity on hemp

Thanks Cathaoirleach and Dan to get the opportunity and to welcome me here. I suppose it's an interesting, very interesting, from the point of view that we had the tillage farmers in here a number of months ago and they're crying out, at the end of their tether and they're nearly gone, the whole lot of them, and crying out in shame and then we see, like what he has said here, solar panels taking over our countryside and that's not what, that's not where we're about at all and we must protect the people that are there but I can see a reluctance in the witnesses here to kind of be the promoters of this and like with the Department of Agriculture and surely that's where it should emanate from that it should be able to give some kind of a green light to farmers or to tillagemen that you're there to be consulted or to help but you'd rather push it back on them to come forward with a plan. I mean it's not a traditional crop and we know little about it so is it the fact that it can be used for drugs at a later stage, is that why you're reluctant to promote this? I mean there's no reluctance on our behalf here, like we have always kind of made it clear, you know, that if there is any viable proposals, you know, that we would actively, you know, consider those proposals but, you know, from that consultation that we carried out there was a distinct lack, a distinct lack of information around the viability of growing hemp for industrial use and particularly at processing level and I mean, you know, we don't have processing facilities here and if we don't have processing facilities and we don't have, you know, information around what the market can return to farmers in terms of a price that would encourage farmers to grow the crop then, you know, it's difficult, you know, to have, for farmers to have actually confidence in growing it. So I think, you know, we talk, I think we talk about... We could stop there, so I can, that's exactly what I'm saying because he'll give you no green light, he'll give you no information and no incentive and like when somebody may say that maybe the Department of Health should be here, I mean, I mean, the Department of Health put the children's hospital in the wrong place in the first place and now they can't open it and that's bad enough for them. Would they ask him to come in here about hemp? I mean, it's agriculture we're talking about and if you have some problem with the fact that it can be used for drugs after, now you know that that's a reality, he should come out and say that and be upfront with it because I can see there's something stopping him, I mean, telling us that the hemp, that he'll treat some, if some hemp producers or whatever come to you with a proposal that he'll deal with them but sure, like, we're nothing the way we are here all day, you know, to be honest and I mean, at the same time, I can see that next year a whole lot of tillage farmers will be gone and they have the tractors and they have the machinery and they have the know-how and it's a shame and they have the land. I don't know, it should be more open with what's wrong because there's no, like anything else that the Department of Agriculture wish to produce or wish that we would produce, that'd be way more forward with it but you're waiting for us to come forward. We've no tradition, we've no background to growing it and that's what we're calling in for, to help us and that's what this committee is about, to help farmers. I need to bring our session to a conclusion. You have to be honest with us and tell us all what's in the back of your mind because you're not all here. Thank you, I need to.