Francie Gorman

And there were grave concerns expressed by DG Santa on how...

This was going to be verified.

Production standards were going to be verified in South America.

And yet, again, we saw in the last number of months, hormone beef consumed by European consumers, consumed here in Ireland.

The checks and balances are not in place to ensure that we can be confident that beef is going to be produced to the same standards that we do.

And there may well be benefits to other parts of the economy.

But it's our job, it's my job in IFA to represent farmers.

And we are really, really concerned about the fact that this beef is going to come in and undermine our beef industry here.

And there may well be benefits for other parts of the economy.

And even those, it's very hard to quantify.

And I know from meeting people at trade forums, our association does, they're more concerned about the trade deals to the US and North America than they are on the Mercosur trade deals to South America.

And if there were

benefits to other sectors in the economy.

Why does agriculture, why do farmers have to carry the cost of this?

And if the European Union were serious about insulating farmers on this, they wouldn't have went about cutting our cap budget by 22% in the discussions that are going to take place in the latter half of 2026.

So we do need a bit of perspective on this.

It's not just about benefits for the other parts of the economy.

It is how are we going to carry this as a sector, as a beef sector and as farmers back home.

Well, I think the scale of the Mercosur trade deal isn't something that we haven't seen before.

It's a massive trade deal.