Family ties run deep for Michael

MICHAEL NcNamara still appreciates the sacrifices made by his aunt and uncle when he was growing up in East Clare.
The Scariff man, who was elected to the Dáil earlier this year, was reared by Jim and Peggy O’Grady after his mother died when he was just two weeks old. His father, Paddy, called regularly to their home when he was growing up but was tragically killed in a farm accident in 1999.
Deputy McNamara believes he was lucky to have Jim and Peggy who supported him throughout his life. He attended Scariff National School and Scariff Community College until the Inter-Certificate when he transferred to St Flannan’s College Ennis.
“I hated boarding. I was already too old to acclimatise and get used to being locked up in evenings with other boys.
“I always liked language, English, Irish and history. Ironically, I went to Flannan’s to study chemistry as they didn’t have it in Scariff but by Leaving Certificate, I was more into English and history. I used to go to Ennis library reading 20th century writers and various history books and had them confiscated on a regular basis because I was reading them in the study hall.”
He went to UCC to do law, before travelling for a while. The Scariff barrister and beef farmer has one farm in Tuamgraney and one in Clooney, which is used as a winterage for fattening cattle. He took over the enterprise in 2005 and when he was abroad, his holdings were leased by a family member.
His uncle Jim had a dairy farm until Michael was in college, when they transferred to a suckling operation but have now got out of this enterprise.
“Dairy farming is a very tough life, you are really tied to it. It is seven days a week, twice at equal intervals for milking. That is not recognised enough by people. Farming has the highest multiplier affect in the local economy generating €1.71 for every €1 spent,” he said.
Given that the majority of Irish farms are a relatively small family holding, Deputy McNamara said the Single Farm Payment from Europe should be structured in favour of the small farmer once the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is re-negotiated for 2013.
While the IFA has lobbied for the SFP to be based on reference years, the deputy believes it is unlikely to be based on the latest briefings from the EU Agriculture Commissioner.
“There has to be a cap on the level of payments at some point. It doesn’t make sense to have some large farmers getting €225,000 in Single Farm Payments.
“The whole point of CAP is food security and the survival of family farms across Europe. That goal is as important now as it when it was introduced. We have to recognise that Irish farmers produce a very high quality product to the highest environmental standards and they have to compete in a world market against producers that are not meeting these standards.
“The EU should continue to closely monitor farms where cheap produce is produced. The last time strict monitoring was carried out in South America, it was discovered the beef wasn’t saleable in EU markets,” he recalled.
He said it is important to consider the impact buying large quantities of food from developing countries has on the local environment.
“I was in Sudan and Ethiopia where large Chinese companies are buying up vast swathes of land, accumulating it for commercial operations. Water is very scarce in these countries and the impact on the environmental and local economy is badly affected.
“I travelled throughout the Soviet Union and it seemed like a great idea to grow cotton in the dessert. But the result was to wipe out the Aral Sea, diverting all water to grow cotton and other products.
“The Aral Sea is now a wasteland; tributaries are not flowing into the sea, they are flowing elsewhere and it is very detrimental to that part of central Asia,” he said.
He urged the Government to introduce measures to boost market gardening and tillage to reduce Ireland’s dependence on imported food.
“Greenbeans, which are highly packaged and flown in from other continents, are not cheap. I realise cost is a huge issue but it is not the only issue.
“There should be more of an effort to buy food that is locally produced. It is less processed, fresher and tastes better.
“Ireland needs to grow its food industry. A lot of agriculture produce leaves Ireland without being developed or processed any further. We have a huge comparative advantage compared with other countries,” he added.
He proposed that a tax incentives be introduced to increase the transfer of farms to young farmers who generally tend to be more progressive and aware of good environmental practices.