Michael Fitzmaurice, Independant candidate in the 2016 general election from the Roscommon-Galway constituency, said that a major issue in the beef sector is a lack of competition, referring to the proposed ABP part-takeover of Slaney Foods.
The factories will kick the farmer up and down the road if they get half a chance
“When Michael O’Leary tried to buy Aer Lingus, the EU moved in and decided it was not good for competition,” said Fitzmaurice. “I don’t think it’s good for competition and the next thing we’ve got to do is take the power out of the factories by making sure there’s 60,000 less cattle exported in 2015 than in 2010. The new minister needs to get out there and get working. If we don’t, we are leaving it in the hands of the factories who will kick the farmer up and down the road if they get half a chance.”
Listen to an interview with Michael Fitzmaurice in our podcast below:
Fitzmaurice is of the opinion that factory-owned feedlots are a major contributing factor in the price of catte.
“It’s actually distorting the number of cattle because they can pull them out whenever they want and I think it’s holding the prices down,” he said. “We may have to bring in legislation for that because it cannot continue that the producer of the food is the worst off.”
Going from door to door and visiting farmers, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) seems to be an issue many people want to talk about, as well as the Beef Genomics Scheme, round three of GLAS and problems with delayed young farmer payments, according to Fitzmaurice.
“I think the farming community deserves a bit of a lift up,” he said. “There’s huge concern at the moment on carcase weight. A lot of farmers were geared up for Charolais cattle, bigger-framed cattle and there is a lot of concern at the way factories are treating farmers.”
The canvas trail
“We’ve got good feedback on the ground and people have been very pleasant to us at the doors,” said Fitzmaurice, who is trying to call to as many people as he can before polling on Friday. “They’ve expressed problems to us in a good way and in fairness to the canvass team that we have, they’ve knocked on every door and gone up every by-road in the whole constituency. After that, you can only put your best foot forward, sell yourself as best you can and let the people decide on the day.”
Independent Alliance
Fitzmaurice is part of the Independent Alliance, which moves away from the party whip system.
“The percentage of independents in the polls looks to be going up,” he said. “When that happens, you have to bring as many like-minded independents together as you can to make sure that we’re working together because one soldier in the army won’t win the war.
“We will work for the family farm, that’s our motto. That’s the way we do things and will continue to do things.”