Martin Heydon

I thank the Deputy. I also want to mention the accelerated capital allowances scheme for farm safety equipment which was expanded to cover a broader range of farm safety investments in budget 2025. A suite of different financial supports are there. In relation to older farmers, three quarters of farm fatalities last year involved farmers over 60 years of age. The HSA's farm safety partnership has…

That was quite a pivot, Deputy. First, the recall and the food safety elements are a matter for the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, which comes under the Department of Health. Any queries in that respect should be directed towards it. The Deputy has touched on the Bord Bia issue here. There needs to be a proper debate and explanation. Obviously, Mr. Murrin will be in front of the joint c…

We have the IFA protesting, and the people who are protesting are being denied that detailed briefing by their leadership. Of all the things I am dealing with this week-----

I am dealing with a lot of things this week, including the outbreak of bluetongue, working on issues around the Agri-Food Regulator, making sure the carbon border adjustment mechanism, CBAM, does not have a bad impact on farmers and reform of the CAP. I was in Brussels on Monday doing that. I was in the Seanad yesterday on nitrates. This other issue is one being conflated and hyped up, and farmers…

----practical and fair space for the discussion on this issue. The Deputy standing up here calling for a head and for a witch hunt against someone who has not broken rules, and not wanting any debate-----

-----and like the IFA, not wanting clear information out there, is not doing farmers any service. It is not. I am going to leave it there. In relation to the actual question the Deputy put down, I am satisfied that the Agri-Food Regulator is fulfilling its overall statutory role to the highest standards, in particular on the unfair trading practices, the UTP legislation, and continues to work on …

The price of beef-----

It is ironic that we are standing here dealing with a question about transparency, the Agri-Food Regulator and the importance for farmers of having transparency-----

-----when the farm organisation that is currently protesting outside Bord Bia is denying-----

Hold on now, the Deputy wants to-----

The heckling is a Sinn Féin trick. Let us park that one for a minute. The farm organisation currently protesting outside Bord Bia is refusing to allow its county executive chairs and the chairs of its commodities committees to receive the detailed briefing from that very chair about the nature of that deal that is being conflated and sold in a soundbite way to farmers. No wonder farmers are upset …

-----that specific trade deal is worth hundreds of millions of euro to Irish farmers and to our industry. The chairman of Bord Bia has overseen exponential growth in the value of Irish food exports year on year-----

When the CSO figures come out in the next couple of weeks, we will see more record growth. This is money going straight into farmers' pockets. They benefit from the integrated nature of global supply chains.

For once, I agree with the Deputy on something. Responsibility for confidence in Bord Bia is spread broadly. It is not on any one entity or farming organisation. Deputy Kenny also has responsibility. The soundbites he is coming out with here, which lack information and are designed to whip farmers up, are also undermining Bord Bia.

The IFA's rash decision not to listen to the explanation and to rush straight out to protest - it had its mind made up before the meeting that it was going to do that - has also played a considerable part in damaging Bord Bia's reputation. We all have to work to rebuild that reputation. That does not mean getting a head on a plate. Government does not operate by mob rule in such scenarios. I will …

I am delighted to have the opportunity to discuss a matter of real substance and of real consequence for farmers for this year and from 2028 to 2034. The decisions we make this year and going into next year will be absolutely critical. I look forward to engaging with the Deputy and colleagues on the Oireachtas joint committee and to working in the very collaborative way we have done for the past y…

The overall level of funding will obviously be dictated by the negotiations on the MFF by the Heads of State and Government. The Departments of Finance and foreign affairs are the lead Departments in these negotiations, in consultation with the Department of the Taoiseach. Ireland's position is very clear. We cannot support a weakening of the CAP budget. Our priority in the negotiations is to secu…

I share the Deputy's concerns about simplification. Historically, we have seen complication. You see this with measures coming forward from Brussels, particularly from directorates general other than DG AGRI. We have the carbon border adjustment mechanism, CBAM, and we had the EU deforestation regulation. Those proposals came from a good place but their practical impact on farming and so on had no…

The positive case was found last week due to stringent routine investigations and testing of a culled cow that had been slaughtered. Antibodies were found, which showed the culled cow had been infected with bluetongue virus, BTV-3, last year on a farm in Wexford. We went in with our follow-up tracing and testing of all of the animals on that farm and the contiguous farm surrounding it. As of yeste…

I focused on one part of the question. I will respond now on the vaccines. The first animal that tested positive did so for antibodies, which proved the culled cow had it last year. As we know, midge activity can only spread disease when the temperature is over a constant 12°C, so we are really in the high-risk period from April or May until October. This animal had it last year and did not presen…

It is not as big a concern that an animal had it here last year. A number of animals displaying antibodies now, showing they had it last year, gives us the concern that midges in that area were infected with it last year. These midges are lying dormant at present. Will some of them still have the disease when the temperature goes back up to spread it? That is the real concern. This disease is not …

I thank Deputy Murphy. Is "moderately extreme" a thing or is it an oxymoron? When I was in Australia somebody pulled me up for saying something was "terrible bad". I was told something is either bad or terrible but that it cannot be both. Deputy Murphy caught me with "moderately extreme". All joking aside, I thank Deputy Murphy for raising this important question concerning the resilience of Iris…

When I first got this job a year ago I got many regular briefings on disease threats, risks, plant diseases, animal diseases, weather risks and everything else. It is a bit overwhelming and then after a while one realises we have our mitigation plans and our approach, which I will go into in a minute. However, it is important we do not catastrophise. The NCCRA, published in 2025, identifies over 1…

I just listed actions.

It says it is low likelihood.