I thank the Deputy for this question. I send apologies on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, who is at the Atlantic Summit Galway event, participating in it with Commissioner Kadis, which is very important.
As the Deputy will be aware, the Minister of State has met with the NIFA. The Minister of State and I have engaged with other representatives of the inshore sector on several occasions throughout the…
TDs / Martin Heydon
Martin Heydon
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine
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That is the first part of the response.
With the greatest respect to the Deputy, the response I have given is the first of three. We have two supplementaries here, so we will get to that. The point I was going to get to is that as part of our budget negotiations, I secured €20 million towards the Berkery report. We see that pretty much as a half-year allocation on the basis of using that money towards some existing schemes, but also looking at new opportun…
In very simple terms, what we are doing and what I outlined in my opening response is the range of supports for the inshore sector already. The Deputy says the inshore sector is in crisis; the entire fishery sector is in crisis. We know that. That is why we have the Berkery report. That is why I was able to secure additional money for 2027, which will look at existing schemes. I see it from all parts of the Departmen…
I thank the Deputy for the question. CAP is the number one priority from the agriculture perspective in terms of this autumn period, not just because Ireland has the Presidency, but because the decisions that are being made and the progress that has been made to date are critically important for what will matter for the agriculture sector for the next seven years. The European Commission published its legislative pro…
What I outlined at the start was the work that has been undertaken by me at the AGRIFISH Council working towards the partial general approach of the Council of the other 26 Ministers for agriculture - the elements of the CAP regulation that are within our control. Parts of that are bracketed and have the financial piece beside it and they are impacted by the negotiation box. The Irish Presidency will publish the late…
The Deputy has to put those questions to the Department of Finance and the Taoiseach. Ultimately, the financial element will be sorted at the European Council meetings of the Prime Ministers. A negotiation box will be published by the Irish Presidency. I do not handle the MFF, but I have had significant input as chair of the AGRIFISH Council under the Irish Presidency. The broader point to explain here is that there …
-----agree with that. Everything is on the table-----
-----until everything is agreed. It is absolutely in the mix there. That will be the trilogues where the Council position will be one. The Commission will have the other and the European Parliament will have the other. We will be into next year before that detail is finally confirmed.
I apologise.
I thank the Deputy for raising this and highlighting what we all know, which is that legislation in this regard is not where we want it to be. That is why I have been very determined to make significant change. I was part of the programme for Government talks. I very much was somebody who agreed with the transfer of responsibility for the Control of Dogs Act and the Dog Breeding Establishments Act. The policy and leg…
We are in agreement that there is unacceptable practice happening that we want to address. There are some very good practices that do this well and right. For them, they have nothing to fear from this legislation because we are going to shine a light on good practice and shine a light if there is bad practice and stamp it out. That is ultimately my ambition here. The legal advice indicates that there are difficulties…
That is what we are going to change by protecting breeding dogs through their lifetime by limiting it up to four litters, extendable to six years only with veterinary approval. A one litter per year cap will prevent repeat breeding within a short timeframe giving breeding bitches appropriate rest and recovery time, which, as the Deputy outlined, is not happening in certain instances right now. New minimum and maximum…
I thank Deputy Fitzmaurice. I cannot give him the future projected figures because I do not know where we will be on that. However, my Department received €173 million in carbon tax funding in 2026, €170 million of which is to be used to support the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, which is set out in Ireland’s Common Agricultural Policy Strategic Plan 2023-2027. ACRES supports over 54,000 farmers who un…
To answer the Deputy's first question, he will get the figure in tabular form in the response. Doing a quick tot, it was over €200 million from 2020 to 2025. Obviously, that has increased in more recent years.
The Deputy does not have to tell me how good REPS was. I was a member of REPS I and II and they were phenomenal. At that time, the slice of the European pie that went to the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, wa…
The lack of the alternative is the challenge for us in the agriculture space. Look at the use of hydrogenated vegetable oil, HVO, on the hauliers' side and beyond and how that does not materialise for us. That is a challenge for us on the agriculture side, a point I continue to make.
From the perspective of supporting our farmers, I will chase every revenue stream I can. I have just come out of my budget negotiation…
The tillage sector is an integral part of Irish farming and makes a significant contribution to overall agricultural output, no more so than in Carlow-Kilkenny, which the Deputy represents. The Government recognises the importance of the sector and the challenges it has faced this year and in recent years, particularly higher input costs and the impacts of prolonged dry weather on crop yields and quality. It is the G…
I agree. Everything I do has the tillage sector in mind. When I was fighting for an extension of the nitrates derogation for the three years I secured last year, the tillage sector was in my mind as much as the dairy sector. Those farmers the Deputy talks about who are fighting for land availability for tillage in his constituency are competing with dairy farmers, and if dairy farmers had required more land, the Depu…
I had two strands of approach to my budget negotiations. One was to secure funding for important schemes into next year and to hit my key priority areas like supporting the tillage sector, which is important. Second was quick money to farmers in light of the significant impact the energy shocks have had. I was back down to €40 million in terms of my negotiations. I was delighted to get another €14 million for straw t…
I thank Deputy Scanlon for raising this important matter. Under the current CAP, approximately 7,000 successful young farmers have been paid an average of €38 million each year in supports under the complementary income support for young farmers scheme, CISYF. Young farmers who seek to benefit from the CISYF are required to demonstrate financial and managerial control of the holding. This is an important provision th…
I have outlined why we have penalties in a space like this. It is to safeguard the integrity of a scheme. With co-funded EU schemes, we have to be able to demonstrate that the money is going to the people to whom it is supposed to go and that they are carrying out the actions they have signed up to. There is a contract when somebody applies for a scheme like this.
Alongside the implementation of the penalty, my Depa…
I do not know the finer details of the example of the case the Deputy provides, so I will talk in general terms. In 2023, before my time in the Department, the Department amended the procedure for the CISYF inspection to allow for small mistakes and technical mistakes to not be subject to a fine or severe penalty. The issue, however, is the level of non-compliance here whereby farmers are not able to show financial c…
The figures the Deputy refers to would have been the original and current financial proposals. There is a significant process of negotiations going on around the overall multi-annual financial framework, MFF, budget for the EU for the next seven years. There will be change in that process and throughout that element with the negotiation box due to be published this weekend, which is another step in the process by the…
I do not doubt the pressures everyone has experienced. I am a farmer's son who was raised in the 1980s. I was told there was no future for farming, Maastricht was going to be the end of us, fishing reform was going to be the end of us, greening was going to be the end of us and Brexit was going to be the end of us but it never was. My point was in the original answer but the resilience of our farming sector absolutel…
Happily, the Deputy can, after this debate, ring the farmer in Kilrush and can tell him he will get the same as he got under the scheme of financial support before the end of the year. It will be cash into his bank account, with no form filling. The Deputy talks about simplification and I completely agree. I was very frustrated in the past by the bureaucracy of form filling. I have introduced schemes. The first thing…