Varadkar comments not just divisive - they’re plain WRONG
A few hours after Leo Varadkar dropped the mask of ever being a man capable of understanding the Irish economy , a journalist followed it up with another poorly researched claim on the false economics at the heart of his argument :
‘6 per cent of the work force are in farming - they produce 1 per cent of GDP - these are the facts of the argument - isn’t he right ? ‘ was the gist of the defence .
In my opinion both arguments are deeply flawed and economically incorrect .
Speaking on the original podcast, Varadkar claimed that what is "in the interests of farmers in the agriculture industry is by and large not in the interests of Ireland as a nation". This is absolutely incorrect.
He went on to state that farmers "still see themselves as the people who bring money and jobs into Ireland, where actually a lot of the time they bring costs on Ireland - by any fair analysis he’s wrong again here.
Varadkar went on to say also: "People in rural Ireland are very quick to tell people in urban Ireland that ‘we're the real workers, we’re the ones paying all the bills, we’re the ones feeding the country. I think maybe we need to be a little bit more blunt in urban Ireland and say, actually that's not the case, we’re the ones paying all the bills and you’re the ones in receipt of a lot of subsidies and a lot of tax benefits that other people don’t get” he concluded
But of course he’s plain WRONG when he says that and I intend to prove it to you in this special podcast and video log :
First piece of advice for Leo. Stick to the facts and don’t generalise -
There are 133,000 farmers and 70, 000 full time Farmers in this country who list farming as their sole employment
The rest are Part time with off farm income mostly in Beef & Sheep - and every cent of their output is recorded .
When I researched that output I realised it was the only way to respond properly to the former Taoiseach - not with guff and personal commentary about his background or his politics or that of his party Fine Gael but - the REAL facts about farmer’s output - which does in fact pay the bills !
Here’s the full video response with the stats backed by the Central Statistics Office - let me know what you think ?