Maria Walsh: Calls for Binding CAP Funds for Young Farmers

Good afternoon Cathaoirleach Senators, colleagues, delighted to be with you here today and to follow on from all my colleagues here across Midlands and North West. I think it's really important to stress as no doubt many of you if not all of you know about 70 to 80 percent of EU legislation that we work on impacts the communities and the sectors here. So this type of conversation is required on an ongoing basis and you mentioned our relationship with the Northern Ireland. We just recently had the Northern Irish Scrutiny Committee also come out and diplomacy and democracy starts with conversation so I look forward to a good Q&A just shortly. Similar to my party colleague Nina Carberry I also sit on four committees on behalf of the constituency of Midlands North West, full member on agriculture as well as gender equality. I'm a substitute member on regional development and justice and home affairs. I along with many MEPs across the political groups co-founded an intergroup on mental health looking at that across all the 20 committees that the European Parliament works on and serves to and also on the EU delegation to the United States but ultimately our role is to represent the 1.8 million constituents across one of the most diverse and wide-spanning constituencies in our European Union. It is on their behalf that I speak to you today to talk about some of the challenges and opportunities ahead. Like many I'm a green cert holder, a master's in ag extension and have a real graw for rural living as well as farming and that is a core part of the work I do on the agricultural committee and I know how central the EU is to lives and the livelihoods of our Irish farmers regardless of the type of farming that they do and right now one of the most significant negotiations underway as colleagues had referred to earlier is the future of the common agricultural policy taking us up from 2028 to 2034 and again to re-echo it's always the worst when you're the last to speak but Ireland's presidency will coincide a real critical juncture and phrase and phase of these negotiations and the decisions taken over the next six months will shape the future of EU farming particularly Irish farming for the many years to come and we have two shadow rapporteurs here the file writer for the common agricultural policy is a part of the EPP group where Finnegal sits and that's by the name of Norbert Linz a German MEP who is a very workable person has come to Ireland and will continue to do so up until the final negotiations but my focus throughout these negotiations as the file writer for the generation renewal report is to look at not just young farmers but also cradle to grave of farming and I think that's incredibly important when we look at generation renewal I think designing parliament's policy on how we attract and retain the next generation of farmers across Europe is incredibly important in my first draft report published this month and happy to share to anybody who wishes to see that report my number one priority is ensuring that at least eight to ten percent at least of the future cap budget for young farmers is binding and not merely aspirational as it currently proposed by the commission and being talked about in some of the EU councils my work also focuses on land mobility targeted help for women in farm women in agriculture expanding mental health services through farm relief services that the commissioner Hansen is certainly vocal on as well as pension schemes run by member states but certainly we can lean into best practices across other member states entitlements I agree with my colleague Luke McFlanagan on that agri-envy schemes entrepreneurship innovation and agri-tech it's widespread and I think as I close out this chapter on agriculture I think we also have to collectively work together on the retaining of leader programs specifically for Midlands Northwest representatives and if you haven't spoken to any leader companies large or small then they'll be on to you because I think it's critical that we we retain and we keep and grow our leader companies I want to highlight briefly on my work on gender equality because for me making not just Ireland but Europe a safer and fair place for women is another key mission that drives my work in Brussels and in the constituency I see firsthand new forms of gender-based violence and intimidation that are emerging online and are spewing into offline earlier this year I was a part of a cohort that traveled to the United Nations where we met the Secretary General of the UN to discuss how to strengthen protections against gender-based violence and ensure women can participate fully and safely in public life and of course gender equality stretches far beyond the online world we know this it's also about equal pay it's about better health care providers political participation entrepreneurship just to flag 40% of our entrepreneurs in Europe are women yet access to VC and angel funding is less than 3% and the big buzzword in Europe right now is competitiveness and if we're going to remove the 51% of our population from that competitiveness then we're doing a disservice I have a lot more to go on but I see the gavel waving I will just say I want to talk briefly on security and defense in specifically on preparedness because I've sat in rooms in Brussels where Ireland has been openly described as the weakest flank on security and defense and whether we like it or not these perceptions have consequences and I think as we go into presidency I certainly would like to us to have a real honest conversation with citizens around what preparedness looks like in in both online and in the physical space when we look at defense and security because for the first time certainly in in in my lifetime at a 38 year in multiple standpoints right across the world uh and in our European Union and we can't forget that and we also have to be adults at the table when we're having those conversations and I really look forward to your questions I want to thank all our MEPs for their contributions