2026-03-19

83. Deputy Martin Kenny asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will provide an update on CAP negotiations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20854/26]

113. Deputy Erin McGreehan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he has had meetings with his counterparts of the other 26 EU member states regarding the Council’s position on CAP post-2027; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20727/26]

The previous question dealt with the CAP budget to some extent. A number of issues are very concerning for Irish farmers. Obviously, the budget being reduced is the big one. That is a serious problem because we need to see a decent budget in place for CAP to maintain productivity and to ensure we protect the family farm. The Minister mentioned generational renewal in a previous reply. There is talk farmers who are pensioners would not get any payments. That is a serious fear that farmers have. In previous generational renewal schemes, a lot of farmers found there was almost an exclusion order against them that they could not go near the farm anymore. That puts them off the possibility of entering into a scheme for generational renewal. There is a range of issues there on which I would like to get the Minister's position, including how strong we need to be as a State, particularly when we have the Presidency, to ensure we get a proper deal for Irish farmers.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 83 and 113 together. The European Commission published its legislative proposals for the post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy in July last year, as part of its wider proposals for the next multi-annual financial framework, MFF, covering the period 2028-2034. Discussions on these proposals are currently ongoing at EU level. Under the Denmark Presidency and the Cyprus Presidency the proposed CAP regulation has a number of thematic blocks in order to facilitate a structural examination of the proposals by the expert working group. However, an important issue under discussion currently concerns the transfer of CAP-specific provisions from the proposed national and regional partnership plan, NRPP, regulation and into the CAP regulation itself. This issue has been raised by several member states and the European Parliament to ensure CAP provisions are clearly reflected in the CAP legal framework. The Cyprus Presidency has indicated it wishes to progress work on this matter as soon as possible. A revised text incorporating the transferred provisions has recently been circulated to member states and is currently under examination by the relevant Council working party. The progress in agreeing the revised text will influence the next phase of discussions under the Cyprus Presidency and will ultimately determine the stage the file has reached when Ireland takes over the EU Presidency in July. While this work is taking place at working-party level, I engage very regularly with my counterparts from other member states on the CAP negotiations. In addition to monthly meetings of the Agri-Fish Council and informal contacts, I engage with other member states and ministers in bilateral meetings on a very regular basis. A recent example was my meeting with the Minister of Agriculture from Czechia, who was recently appointed to the Agri-Fish Council, en marge of the Agri-Fish Council meeting in February. I also welcomed the Finnish Minister for Agriculture and Forestry to Ireland in early March. The Ministers of State, Deputies Dooley and Michael Healy-Rae, and I engaged with her and her officials on our relevant portfolios. These engagements provide valuable opportunities to exchange views on the CAP proposals, better understand the positions of other member states and identify areas of common interest as negotiations progress. Alongside these ministerial engagements, my Department is in regular contact with the counterparts across member states and with the European Commission as part of the ongoing work on the CAP proposals. Working collaboratively with my EU counterparts, European Commissioner Christophe Hansen and the European Parliament, towards a robust and workable CAP framework is an absolute priority for me and the Department in the time ahead. Deputy Kenny is right when he says big decisions have to be made. Right now, the overall fund and a properly funded CAP continues to be a top priority for all of us to fight for. The Irish Government has clearly stated this is a top priority. It is not just me saying it but the Tánaiste, the Taioseach and others have said it. Beyond that, we will have decisions to make on how best we can support our farmers with whatever the final CAP budget is and on how that CAP can best deliver. I am determined to deliver simplification and on the structures with which we do that. I have concerns about the NRPP structure and specific requirements for social cohesion and different elements. On the one hand, you could say work out of the national pot but on the other hand, you could tie your hands in terms of how much flexibility you have in that regard. We see that in terms of the additional €45 billion proposed by Ursula von der Leyen in January, how much of that we will be available to access and deliver to where we need to deliver it in comparison to other member states. These measures are all ones we are working through and when we have the Presidency, we will have to make more progress on them. As I said, generational renewal is an area of real importance. I would not agree with the changes around the mandatory pension meaning the stopping of the single farm payment. There are a lot of other measures in there by Christophe Hansen that are very ambitious around the generational renewal piece. Again, we have to work through these proposals. There needs to be more meat on the bones of them and we need to see which of them end up being permanent or mandatory and which will be optional.

I thank the Minister. I appreciate we are at an early stage in negotiations and they have to take a route through all of this. The budget, as I said at the outset, is the key and what most farmers are concerned about, in that we see the budget being eroded. In every CAP negotiation for the past number of decades, we have seen that happen and that needs to be very firmly fought against to ensure we keep the budget in place so farmers can have reliability into the future. That is one of the big things for a lot of people. We talk about generational renewal but when people go into farming, they want to see a future in it. Part of that future is that they have to have a reliable and stable future and they know payments are going to be available to them. On generational renewal, the Minister mentioned how we determine what is a farmer. What is a full-time farmer? What is the farm family? How is that put in place? I was concerned to see the Minister's colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, in the changes to the forestry programme, suggested that for people to get the forestry grants, they would only need to have one year of payments. That is opening the door for corporates, companies and all kinds of people to be allowed to buy land up and to compete with other farmers.

It is not. The Deputy is completely wrong.

That is a very retrograde step and I would caution against that type of move.

I would like to join with Deputy Healy-Rae-----

Sorry, Minister, Deputy McGuinness has a question.

It is on the topic of stability and certainty in farm payments. I want to raise the issue of hill farmers on the Knockmealdown Mountains in County Waterford. They are currently in dispute with a landlord over exorbitant rent increases. I know the Minister will not intervene but the Department has effectively taken a side in an ongoing dispute here in holding these farmers over a barrel because no farm payments are being issued while the dispute goes on because of the requirement to provide a commonage-evidence letter. This is effectively the State siding with the landlord. These farmers rely on that farm payment. They farm other lands as well as the ones that are in dispute. This has echoes of darker times in our history when absentee landlords pushed farmers off the land. The Department needs to take a realistic look at this. I understand the limitations on the Minister's ability to intervene but, if the Department is to be neutral in disputes, it should be fully neutral and not hold farmers over a barrel looking for this commonage letter while these disputes are ongoing.

To go back to Deputy Kenny's assertions regarding the changes to the definition of an "active farmer" for forestry, I back the Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae, in saying that the Deputy is wrong.

Then explain it to me.

It is not only us who are saying the Deputy is wrong. The Social, Economic, Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland also says he is wrong in that it has very much welcomed these changes and said that they will help small farmers in the area of forestry and beyond. It is very easy to polarise these issues and the Deputy is dead right; I have no doubt I will be back here disagreeing with him again on other definitions. However, with regard to the next CAP, our definition of an "active farmer" will be pivotal. It will impact what we do on generational renewal and in many other spaces. We will need to have a fair and honest discussion on all of the supports and measures that are now in place. Are they delivering what we need them to? Do they in some ways act as a barrier to those who actively want to farm and drive on? The State resources employed to support farmers are very significant, as are the European resources, but we always have to ask whether they are doing what they say on the tin and whether they are best delivering on our policy objectives. I look forward to debating those points here. I am sure that, if the Deputy were to put a specific question on forestry to the Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae, he would also be happy to debate the matter. I am aware of the particular case in Waterford that Deputy McGuinness has raised. It is a bit beyond the scope of this question. The issue of single farm payments comes down to who is the active farmer. That is the position on that question. I hope a resolution can be found in the near future. On Deputy Kenny's point on generational renewal and so on, this is going to be a really challenging debate. Commissioner Hansen's proposals talk about an increase from 3% of the budget to 8%. That would be really ambitious in the context of an increased budget and a lovely thing to deliver. If we are 20% down on the last budget, it is going to be really hard to deliver. Where do you cut money from to deliver in these areas? That may be a mandatory measure. These are the things we are trying to work through. We are trying to secure the maximum amount of flexibility so that we can be sure that interventions will deliver on generational renewal while also supporting all other sides of farming.

I accept that there is a proposed increase in the budget for generational renewal. The issue for many farmers is that, when programmes were put in place for them in the past, such as schemes to pension them off, these included an exclusion order. They could no longer have anything to do with the farm. They were out of it altogether and had to stay clear of it. That was a very bad proposal to put forward because the vast majority of these people, whether they are in their 60s, 70s or 80s, have farmed all their lives. They want to continue doing it until their last breath. They want to go out and feel they are an integral part of it. It is important that can be accommodated in any scheme that is brought forward. The bigger issue is how to get young people into farming and how to get them to make that decision to have a future in Irish agriculture. To do that, it must be profitable and vibrant. They must see it has a future and that it will be good for them in the long term and not just for the next year or two. It is very important that we get that part of it right. Again, the big part of this issue goes back to the budget. The Minister has not really dealt with that. What pressure is the Irish Government going to put on to ensure we maximise the budget for farmers in respect of all of this?

I am sorry. I thought I had dealt with the budget point clearly. It is our top priority. While it is not just me, I raise this at every single AGRIFISH meeting and in every engagement with Commissioner Hansen and other members of the Commission. The Tánaiste also raises the issue in his role in ECOFIN, as does the Taoiseach, who is in Brussels today. In all of those budget negotiations, there is a clear understanding across the EU that the CAP budget is critically important to Ireland. We are a net contributor, which means our voice is heard when we raise these points. I am proud that we are a net contributor. We have managed to take the structural funds of the 1980s and build a country and an economy that is going well enough to allow us to contribute more than we take in. For the benefit of the entire country, including those not interested in agriculture at all, 75% of the money we get back from Europe comes through Common Agricultural Policy measures. It is therefore in the interests of every citizen in this country that we get the maximum amount back from the CAP. If we do not get it from there, there will be a deficit in what we get back as against what we put into Europe. If there is a transition period, that will also have an impact. As of now, a transition period is not planned but the timelines are very tight to have a whole new CAP in place and ready to go for the beginning of January 2028. If the Commission decides down the line to have a transition period, Ireland has good experience in that space and we will try to help design that during our Presidency. Having certainty in this space and flexibility to bring in targeted measures to deliver on our policy objectives while not undermining the commonality of the Common Agricultural Policy is a balancing act that we have to get right here. I look forward to continuing to engage with colleagues, particularly in the context of Ireland holding the Presidency of the EU from July until the end of the year. It will be a pivotal time for us, particularly with regard to the negotiations on the MFF. What happens there will directly impact farmers through the Common Agricultural Policy.