Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 24 Apr 2024

Vol. 1052 No. 8

Weather-Related Supports for Farmers: Statements (Resumed)

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Deputy Martin Heydon)

I too would like to welcome our friends from Estonia. It is great to have them here. I hope they learn a bit about the challenges and opportunities we face in our agriculture sector, which is so important to the Irish economy.

This spring has been unlike many others. There is a saying that farmers need to be optimists or they would not still be farmers, but the optimistic streak in our farmers has most certainly been challenged this winter and spring. Farmers have been battered by the weather over recent months. In the past few weeks I visited farms in my own county of Kildare, out west in Galway and around the south east of the country. Last Friday I stood in a farm in Gowran, County Kilkenny, which has the best of land. We stood in pools of water, such is the saturated nature of the soil. I heard and saw at first hand the difficulties farmers have getting animals back out to grass, getting spring crops into the ground and getting into their fields. I have also heard from my colleagues throughout the country, including my colleagues in County Meath who have visited potato farmers and my colleagues in the west who have met livestock farmers. The challenges are different but are all very serious. It has been a very difficult time. However, farmers are a tough group and by their nature they are optimists. Since the rain began last autumn, they have faced an extremely testing few months. It is at times like this that we see the best of the sector and that sense of meitheal, with everyone putting their shoulder to the wheel to help farmers to navigate through this difficult period.

As a Minister of State with a responsibility for farm safety, I know the impact that stress and workload pressure can have on a farm. A distracted and busy mind is rarely focused on the task at hand. That is when things can go wrong. In recognition of the additional burden and stress on farmers, at the beginning of this month my Department paused farm inspections that are not specifically required to support payments, until last Monday, 22 April. In doing so, we were conscious of the need to avoid any action that might delay or affect payments to farmers. Cashflow is critical at this time, when farms face additional and unanticipated expenses.

Similarly, the Health and Safety Authority has deferred its farm inspection campaign focusing on farm vehicles and machinery until Tuesday, 7 May. In the meantime, an awareness campaign is continuing to highlight safety issues around farm vehicles and machinery that cannot be overlooked. Bord Bia has activated a helpline in response to the weather difficulties. When contacted by Bord Bia to arrange farm audits, farmers can request to defer these audits if the circumstances they face so demand. These changes have gone some way to alleviating any potential additional administrative burdens for farmers. However, the pressure and stress of facing into the backlog of work remains. Picking up the phone to call a neighbour, friend or family member, and taking the time to have a chat and get any worries off their minds, can make all the difference at this really difficult time. I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that there are dedicated support services available to provide help and advice for those who need it.

At the outset of this challenging period, we said that every option remained on the table for us to support farmers. As outlined already by the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, we have been in constant contact with the sector throughout this period through the national fodder and food security committee.

We have been able to offer flexibilities in administrative checks, introduce a fodder transport support measure to ensure fodder supplies remain available to those who need them most, and confirm a much-needed step to support the tillage sector on the back of two washout planting windows. Thankfully, while we have seen the return of a drier and more settled spell of weather, bringing with it improved ground conditions and a resumption of spring activity, we will continue to engage with the sector to ensure that every measure necessary is taken to support farmers. We will also monitor our banks and other financial institutions to make sure they are doing everything they can to support the sector at the time it needs it the most. I am acutely aware that the impact of this spring’s additional costs, delayed planting and late turnout will be felt on farms throughout the rest of the year.

It was recently said to me that agriculture in Ireland is like a gearbox. It is central to driving forward the rural economy and without it we would be missing a vital piece of society that delivers a host of benefits for our country. However, if not every part of that gearbox is working, we also have a problem. Whether it is our beef, dairy, tillage, sheep or horticulture sector, they all make a unique contribution to the overall sector. If one does not function properly, that impacts not only on those farmers but on all farmers and on the economy of rural Ireland as a whole. That is why, in addition to our short-term response to the current weather challenges, we also need to keep an eye to the future. Current estimates are that by 2050, 60% more food will need to be produced to feed the growing world population. All the indications are that at a global level we will have to do that with less - less land, fewer inputs and less certainty about weather patterns. These are not far-off realities. Irish farmers are feeling the full brunt of it this spring. As a world leader in agricultural production, based on some of the highest production standards in the world, the EU and Ireland are well placed, and have a responsibility, to lead on what is a fundamental challenge of our time.

In the next while, conversations will ramp up about Europe’s budget for farmers and the shape of the next Common Agricultural Policy. As part of that, there will be an opportunity to examine how we support farmers during adverse weather conditions to ensure we equip each sector as well as possible. We must foster greater integration among all sectors and simplify the system of supports for farmers in order that everyone can make a valuable contribution. Ultimately, farmers want to be able to produce food and secure a fair price for their product while doing their bit to improve the environment around them. They do this hail, rain or shine, and it is our job to support their efforts.

While I said that farmers are optimistic by nature, the sector has found matters more difficult in recent years. Farmers, as the guarantors of food security and the custodians of the countryside, feel they are no longer valued as they once were. We have seen that reflected throughout Europe in recent months. It is by working with farmers in partnership, rather than in confrontation, that we will achieve the best results and do so in a way that brings everyone with us.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle and the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach for the opportunity to address the House on these important issues and for giving over valuable Dáil time to what is a very important issue to every county. While we hope the sun will continue to shine for farmers, with just the right level of rain at the right time, the Government remains committed to working with the sector through this challenging period for our farming community. We will continue to stand with them and to support them in the work they do, namely, to produce top-quality, safe and nutritious food that is trusted at home and abroad, making sure their economic viability and sustainability will be protected throughout that process.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Cormac Devlin)

Go raibh maith agaibh. There was some very good information, particularly from the perspective of farmers, regarding safety and mental health.

Deputy Claire Kerrane

I am sharing time with Deputies Browne and Conway-Walsh.

While these statements are welcome, they would have been more timely a number of weeks ago, when the issue was very much at the fore. Perhaps together we could have looked at measures that were needed, in consultation with farmers, the farming organisations and the Opposition, given the difficult and challenging weeks and months farmers have had. It has been a really difficult time for them and, as has been said, the issues vary. I know that in my case at home, while our cattle are still inside, we have been very lucky and have had silage remaining and we have not been stuck for fodder. Farmers in other parts of the country, however, throughout the west and in every other part of our State, have been under pressure and have been running out of fodder. I have met farmers who, in some cases, sold livestock a couple of months ago because they did not have the fodder and they were really concerned about the cost of it, never mind getting it transported to them in the first instance.

It has been said many times, and it is true, that it has been raining more or less since last July. It has been an especially awful time for those in the tillage sector. They were under severe pressure from bad weather last year, particularly last autumn and winter, and they had very much hoped for better weather this year but, obviously, that has not been the case so far. In January, following Agriland's snap national survey showing that 34% of farmers were running short of fodder and that 33% would have to purchase more fodder, I asked the Minister to outline a plan to support farmers at that point. Instead, he and the Department waited until April to announce a suspension of some inspections, and after that, the fodder transport support measure, all of which I welcomed but they did come after a long period. I know from speaking to farmers that many of them felt very much on their own as the rain continued to fall and as they kept being told the Department was monitoring the situation. A great deal of time was wasted and farmers were left feeling on their own in many cases. Delays to farm payments - in fact, delays to probably every farm payment both last year and this year - made a bad situation worse in that input costs are still really high and some farmers did not have the money to buy fodder when it might have been slightly cheaper a number of months ago.

In respect of that transport support measure, how much money has been set aside for that and how much has been spent to date? Was consideration at any point given to looking at the fodder support scheme that was in place previously? While the Minister cited the fact that the national committee had concluded that there were sufficient stocks in the country, will he indicate of it also looked at the cost of what was available in the country? While farmers may be able to access it and the help with the transport is good, which I welcomed, the cost of it in the first instance has been an issue and has remained high for a lot of farmers. Like the Minister, I acknowledge the role of Teagasc, which has co-ordinated support for farmers and provided advice at every step, which is very helpful.

We are being told, however, that this weather may become more frequent - it more than likely will - so I urge the Department to have a plan with measures on standby, ready to kick in if they are needed, and perhaps that national committee on fodder and food security should be tasked with putting together a plan in order that we will be proactive should there be similar weather again, whether this year, into the winter or in a similar spring next year. Rather than take a wait-and-see approach, we should have an action plan ready to go and we should be proactive, not least given what we have seen and learned from this spring so far.

Turning to the tillage sector and the €100 per hectare payment that has been announced, many are waiting for the detail in respect of that support measure and what it will look like. Given the response from grain growers and the IFA, which has said it is not enough, how were the sum and the payment decided on? Obviously, more information is needed, such as regarding who it will be for, when it will be paid and who will qualify for it. Those details are needed as quickly as possible because that sector has been under great pressure, and given we want to grow our tillage sector and have committed to doing so, we need to make sure that when things go wrong, those in the sector feel supported and listened to. That is very important in the context of any supports that are announced.

The tillage vision stakeholder group's report is available and we really need to see what immediate action the Minister will take in that regard. It is an area we want to grow but people in the tillage sector have been under huge pressure, both last year and this year, and we know they will be under pressure to get seeds in the ground even now with the payment that has been announced. I welcome the fact that payment has been extended to the horticultural sector, another sector that I believe has major potential. Weather is obviously a major challenge, but I welcome the inclusion of the payment for that sector because sometimes the people in that sector feel left out.

On the Shannon Callows flood scheme, while rain has made the job of farmers very difficult, it has been a lot more difficult in areas where flooding is already in place, such as along the Shannon Callows. There have been issues with that flood scheme and a number of farmers have sought reviews and appeals.

I ask that the Minister provide support in those outstanding cases where people are looking for help with fodder.

The Association of Farm and Forestry Contractors in Ireland has sought for the increase in the carbon tax to be stalled. I ask that the Minister consider this request. The increase would be another bill for farmers, increasing their costs beyond what they already are.

Our family farmers feel they are in an uncertain situation. I point the Minister to the legislation that Deputy Carthy and I introduced last week on establishing a commission on the future of the family farm. I have been taken aback since assuming this role in the past year. If one meets farmers, one might think the issues they raise have to do with income or payments. Instead, the issues they raise are very much about their sons and daughters having emigrated, their children not being keen about taking on the farms and the farmers themselves not being sure whether they should encourage their children to take on their farms, given that the farms are not viable. I have never seen so much uncertainty around the future of our family farms. Many of them feel under threat, so we need to be proactive and plan. We need to examine the challenges and tackle them head-on if we are to protect and sustain our family farms. There is a great deal of uncertainty. If we are serious about valuing the family farm, we should set up the commission, get everyone around the table, listen to the farmers and farm organisations, examine the key challenges, including climate action, generational renewal and succession, and consider how to support our family farms in facing these challenges. This would send a signal to farmers that we will support them and, where there are challenges, we will meet those head on. I ask the Minister to consider this legislation.

Deputy Martin Browne

One of the issues we generally come across when responding to the needs of farmers is the delay in appropriately addressing things as they happen. The particularly wet weather at the end of last year and to date in 2024 has extended the season in which farmers have had to keep their livestock housed and, as a result, has had a significant impact on feeding costs. Despite the signals that were apparent during the final quarter of last year and that continued through subsequent months, the Department of agriculture sat on its hands and adopted a wait-and-see approach. This approach has cost farmers money, and the consequences for them will be felt throughout the year. To begin with, the cost of additional fodder has been left to the farmers. There were also mixed messages. A few weeks ago, the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, belatedly stated that a fodder support scheme was still on the table, yet we also had the Department saying that no financial assistance for buying fodder would be provided. The difficulties caused by the weather has cost farmers. In addition, they were given mixed messages, only to ultimately be let down on this front.

The financial issues are not just immediate. Many of them will be felt over a much longer period because farmers also have to deal with the fact that the weather has prevented them from putting calves and lambs out and has impacted on their ability to prepare their fields, some of which are showing the signs of being unable to take fertiliser. There will be consequences for their hope to get a decent amount of silage in. Farmers have had one eye on these additional costs and the other on the letters outlining their obligations to the banks.

The Department cannot wash its hands of this matter. The trouble that was brewing was evident at the end of last year. The alarm bells were sounded by farmers and farming organisations in clear terms and the evidence was there on the ground for all to see. July 2023 was the wettest July on record and there were two storms in August, more heavy rainfall events in late September, record rainfall in the South for October and above average rainfall in December, yet the Government’s wait-and-see approach delayed tailored action until the beginning of April. Sinn Féin was flagging concerns about the oncoming fodder crisis as far back as January, but it was only recently that the Government took any form of action in the form of the fodder transport scheme and halting non-essential farm inspections.

A key question must be asked about the timeliness of the Government’s response to farming concerns. A delayed response has one crucial result, that being, the financial consequence that will echo for farmers throughout the year. It is bad enough to see such a delay, which only results in additional costs for farmers, but it is also a major concern that the Government does not appear to be learning that weather conditions such as these are no longer the exception. This is the crux of the issue. That the Government has again held back on helping farmers this year is indicative of how it is not prepared to deal with the immediate crisis. Worryingly, the Government is unprepared for the changes in weather patterns that we are seeing and for the consequences those changes have for agriculture. The farming calendar regularly changes with those weather conditions.

In the immediate term, we need an assurance from the Government that flexibility will be provided around deadlines where possible. Farmers need an assurance that their payments and scheme participation will not be impacted by factors that are outside their control and have not been responded to appropriately by the Department. There is an onus on the Government to respond in an adequate and timely way. In the longer term, the Government needs to come up with measures that are designed to address the likelihood that such weather events will become more frequent and that problems like those we are discussing today will be repeated. Ad hoc responses that come after protracted delays are not the way forward. The Government needs to learn this and provide accordingly for our family farms.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I welcome this opportunity to discuss some of the issues impacting on farming. I thank the Minister for his statement. In particular, I welcome his remarks around the well-being of farmers. There is not much we can do about the weather in the short term, but there are many actions we can take to serve the financial stability and viability of farms and to alleviate the financial stress that causes so much anxiety and impacts on the well-being of farmers.

The ACRES 1 payments that were due to be paid to applicants last November or December were to be based on the scoring of the applicants’ lands for biodiversity. Advisers spent all of last summer scoring and duly transmitted those results to ACRES while the scores for the commonages were to be completed by the Department. Where scores on commonages were low, advisory meetings were to be held with shareholders to implement measures to improve those scores. All ACRES 1 participants were meant to receive a full breakdown of their field scores by the end of 2023. To date, though, no meetings have been held and farmers are none the wiser as to how their commonages have scored. As payments to farmers were delayed, the Minister moved to make a flat rate of payment to all ACRES 1 farmers. However, this has left a number of farmers in limbo. As stated in a letter from the Department, if a farmer has been overpaid in this flat rate payment, the Department will take measures to recoup the overpaid amount. Farmers on hill lands with commonages have no idea how their lands have scored and what payments are due to them this year. When will ACRES 1 participants receive their scorings and subsequently know their actual payments? What actions can they take, either collectively through landscape actions or individually through non-productive investments, to improve their scores? I would like it if the Minister cleared up these issues around ACRES. That would at least help farmers to know where they stood financially.

The next issue I wish to address is that of TAMS. After much delay, a number of TAMS applicants have received approval to move ahead with their planned on-farm investments. However, a number of issues remain with this scheme. When will the Department's local offices be able to make TAMS payments on valid claims? Building costs have soared over the past few years, which has become clear in the building of farm sheds. In 2024, the Department's costing for the construction of a new shed is running at least 20% behind the actual cost. The farmer is only getting a percentage of the Department's costing, not the actual cost. This is leaving many farmers with a significant shortfall, with a 40% grant aid possibly ending up worth closer to 20%. When is the Department going to review its cost references to reflect actual building costs and other related costs?

I wish to address the delays in payments. As 2023 was the beginning of the latest round of CAP, a number of new schemes were introduced last year, which has led to a number of delays to payments. Two of these schemes, namely the eco-scheme and the young farmers scheme, have still got a number of farmers with payments outstanding. When will these all be sorted out? In terms of the young farmers scheme, a missing tick in the renewal form has led to an existing young farmer's non-payment.

With huge pressure on advisers last year, it is unfair these farmers are being penalised even though their status as a qualifying young farmer existed prior to last year. A bit of leeway and flexibility needs to be introduced where innocent errors were made.

The national fertiliser register has been introduced this year for the first time and farmers are meant to be applying fertiliser based on soil sample results. However, a large number of farmers do not have an up-to-date soil sample result and will not have it until the end of this year in many cases. The advice on correct fertilisers to use so as to avoid a breach of regulations will take much consultation between the Department, farmers and, in particular, advisers. Many farmers will have purchased fertiliser already this year and advisers are overrun with the BISS and other scheme applications at the moment to oversee the correct use of fertiliser on farms. As this is the first year of the fertiliser register, will the Minister allow some leniency for 2024 while all parties get their heads around the changes that have been made? As a bottom line, will the Minister guarantee there will be no penalties while this work is being done to give a chance to the farmers to get on course with this? Indeed, I would suggest a one-day course similar to that in ACRES might be a wise course of action to advise farmers on these new regulations. It is to everybody's benefit if we can have this communication and transfer of information so that everybody is on the same page on it. In expecting farmers to take on something completely new such as the national fertiliser register, what is important is we get it right and it does the job it is intended to do. I would ask the Minister to allow a little flexibility there for everybody to get on the right page.

I want to raise as well with the Minister the issue of greenways, in particular, the Murrisk to Louisburgh and Lecanvey greenway. Last week, I and, indeed, some of the Minister's own Fianna Fáil representatives and Fine Gael representatives attended a meeting in Lecanvey Community Centre where there were dozens of farmers. What has happened in this situation is TII and Mayo County Council have imposed an option of a route on farmers for the greenway from Murrisk to Lecanvey. This is the wrong way to go about trying to get co-operation from and a partnership approach with farmers who own this land to facilitate greenways. The farmers in the area support a route alongside the roadway, which seems the common-sense thing to do, where it would be raised and made safe using safety barriers and it could be done without crossing over everybody's land, but they feel at present they are being threatened with CPOs to push this greenway through. It is a greenway they do not want on the land. They are saying it will cause all kinds of problems for their farming practices. It is not that anyone, God knows, in Mayo is against greenways because we have some very successful greenways that have been done in partnership with farmers. I would ask the Minister to speak to TII and ask if it has learned nothing from projects, such as the Corrib gas project, about the quality of consultation that needs to be done here.

The farmers and landowners there are very concerned. We see already where there are so many restrictions on planning permissions on people and the ability of people being allowed to build on their own land. What if they see a greenway going through there? There was an instance, which I think was raised by the INHFA, where a farmer in Kerry had to apply for a right of way on his own land. That cannot be right. We must have respect for farmers and landowners and work with them in a sense of partnership but, above all, we must have a sense of respect for the job they are doing in terms of food security and everything else we need them to do for the economy in rural Ireland. To go about it in a carte blanche way of threatening CPOs is totally wrong. Will the Minister speak to his counterpart Minister about the TII and tell it to stop this immediately and engage with the farmers on the land from Murrisk to Louisburgh to show them that somebody will stand up for them. I am asking Deputy McConalogue, as Minister for agriculture, to stand up for these farmers, to ask that they be treated with respect and to say consultation is not coming down and that it is being said there will be a greenway there. It just does not work. It will not work with greenways and it will not work with climate change either. We need farmers on board for all of these things. All of the farmers I know, certainly in County Mayo, are more than willing. They want to see the viability of their areas. They want food security. They want to play a major part in climate change and they have been doing so for years. They want to continue on that pathway but they have to be treated with respect, they have to be listened to and they have to be consulted in a meaningful way.

Deputy Alan Kelly

I very much welcome this debate. We should have had it, though, some time ago. I will not lay all the blame for that at the Minister's doorstep considering how early Easter was, St. Patrick's Day and the appointment of a new Taoiseach, etc. There was a lot of time taken up in not being in here and with other business.

As the Minister is probably well aware, I live in the midst of a progressive farming community in north Tipperary. I grew up on a dairy farm. Talking to all my neighbours and my dad, this is the worst period of weather we have had in my lifetime. It is affecting us in so many different ways in rural Ireland, not only from an agricultural point of view but from an infrastructure point of view as well. The soil conditions are atrocious and that is having an impact, obviously on planting and sowing and the delays but also on milk yields and all the consequences of that. The financial, social and family strains that are being put on farmers are seismic.

I acknowledge some of the work that both the Minister and the Minister of State have done. I would have done some more in other areas, but I acknowledge it. I also acknowledge the limitations around some of the stuff they can do. There is no magic wand for much of this stuff.

However, the most important point I will make in this debate is that we will be facing this year in, year out. We will probably face it every year in some capacity. Climate change is what it is. Some years the problem could be in a different form due to drought but we need to put in place the mechanisms to be able to deal with this in a reactive way depending on the climatic situation. Some years, we hope, it will be fine and we can run through as normal with all the incentives and all the changes we need to make in agriculture, which we all know about, but we need to have the triggers in place depending on the weather patterns. If the Minister and the Minister of State were to formulate a plan for how that would happen so it would kick in one way or the other, that would be excellent.

I very much welcome the decision to delay farm inspections but, to be honest, many of my neighbours wanted to get them done and out of the way when they were called. While it was welcome in some scenarios, I know few who availed of it.

We have had various suggestions coming from different quarters about short-term assistance that could have helped over recent months. As I was sitting here listening to the debate, I was looking up Carlow Weather. The weather patterns for the next week are improving, which is very important. That is what we are down to. We are actually down to that. The use of high ground and SACs, for example, to provide more fodder and more available land is something we will have to consider into the future when we are faced with these issues.

I was surprised there was not a fodder scheme put in place, but I was also very surprised by what the Minister has said about the number of farmers who availed of what was put forward by Teagasc in relation to help. It does not tally with what I was hearing on the ground, but I respect and understand the figures. They obviously have to be accurate.

I will make a couple of points on the transport scheme which I hope the Minister and Minister of State will take on board. I am referring to many of the farmers I know. On the fodder they have got, I am aware it is over 75 km and I understand that is an arbitrary amount and the Minister has to pick something. However, I ask him to reconsider one thing. I do not think this is actually going to be used as much as first thought. The Minister will probably agree on that. If there is capacity and it is not being used, I ask the Minister and Minister of State to consider it be pulled back from that 1 April date, where farmers have receipts, so that it can be used. We could put it back to 1 March. That is one suggestion I hope the Minister takes on board. Then there is the timely payment of funds. I have had a number of farmers contact me about ACRES difficulties. I have also had young farmers contact me. I agree with the previous speaker on the rules they are being put through to get some of the grants. Some of the rules are pretty minute. There is some delay with some specific aspects of ACRES. There should be more leniency to help farmers through this difficult period.

I will speak a little about the input suppliers, banks, credit unions and processors. I very much welcome some of the approaches being taken by the pillar banks. Some of the processors have put forward very good incentives and schemes to help the farmers. Fair play to Tirlán, which is paying a 3 cent per litre top-up on milk, along with other support payments. Other co-ops are doing other things. It shows some solidarity. In my introduction I talked about us having almost a plan which encourages rather than forces these sort of interventions, and not just from the co-ops, the processors and the banks, so we can kick that in the very minute we know we are facing into a problem based on the way the weather patterns are going. That would be great.

I have to acknowledge the support of all the farming communities and the wider communities in rural areas who are helping many of the farmers. I see that every day and am very much involved in that. It must be acknowledged. It is a real community spirit.

There is the issue of diversification. The Minister has emphasised numerous times how we need more people working in horticulture and tillage, but they have incurred big losses in the last harvest, with everything that is going on in the grain market after Russia’s invasion, etc. We therefore need a long-term plan for when there are difficulties one season after another so we are not losing people. The numbers are dropping and the Minister has acknowledged this. It could be almost like a five-year plan to ensure we are not losing people because of the uncertainty. This is hard, difficult work and many young people simply will not face into it. I live with farmers all around me. Some are in tillage and trying to get the next generation into it. We talk about the family farm and succession, but when it comes to tillage and horticulture that is becoming even more difficult. That is a real issue.

The retailers, which we call “the big five”, must be pushed more to help to ensure growers remain financially viable. We need to see them having supplementary payment schemes in place to ensure consistency of produce available to them so it will be on the shelf, and to ensure the farmer gets as much as possible but also that it is available to the consumer at a fair price. I appreciate the €100 per ha scheme the Minister has brought in, but where has that figure come from? Will he provide by return an analysis of where that figure came from? Surely it was not off the top of the Minister’s head.

Before I finish I must address the Mercosur deal. My colleague, Professor Niamh Hourigan, who is standing in the European elections, has raised how bad a deal this is at a European level. It is bad for our climate and essentially a complete contradiction of what we are trying to achieve globally. The EU is asking Irish farmers to set aside land for nature restoration on the one hand, but incentivising farmers in South America to destroy habitat on the other by importing 99,000 tonnes of beef from there. President Macron has said this is a bad deal and my colleague has said it does not stack up from a financial, security, production quality and climate point of view. There are obviously big decisions to be made about the CAP in the coming year, but also a big decision to be made about this. Simply put, that really needs to be looked at again and rehashed because it is a bad deal all round.

Deputy Holly Cairns

The amount of rainfall we have been experiencing over recent months has pushed the agriculture sector to a crisis point. We have seen almost ten months of almost non-stop rainfall and farms are saturated. A few days' break is not enough for fields to dry out.

This has been an absolutely devastating time for farmers across all sectors. Some livestock farmers are having to provide supplementary feed for much longer periods than expected as animals remain indoors. Slurry tanks are at capacity and farmers’ silage and fodder stocks are depleted. Many are struggling to afford to buy additional silage and fodder needed to feed their animals. In addition, there is a reduction in beef prices. The IFA last week called out factories for attempting to take advantage of the weather difficulties beef farmers are facing by trying to pull prices. The current prices are more than 10 cent per kg behind this time last year while beef prices in the UK are running 12 cent per kg ahead of last year. Factories in the North are actually paying more for our cattle than factories here and there is absolutely no justification for that. Farmers are under an immense amount of pressure at the moment and cannot be expected to spend all their time arguing with factories over insultingly low beef prices. I have consistently called for reform of the meat processing sector, including a statutory beef regulator that can deal with the industry once and for all. The Minister’s claims a food regulator would cut it have proven hollow. The beef tribunal in the early 1990s highlighted widespread improper relationships between the beef industry and Government. It also stressed the lack of regulation and the impact it had on the sector. Thirty years later we have not seen any changes. The system is still designed to enrich the beef barons while small farms fade away and young farmers have no choice but to pursue other careers.

The financial pressure on small farms is always immense. Cash flow is incredibly tight. This is also putting a huge strain on farmers in terms of stress and confidence in the viability of their farms going forward. Potato farmers are currently working round the clock to get crops planted during this brief dry spell. By mid-April potato growers would usually have planted 21,000 acres, but on Sunday, Seán Ryan, chair of the potato committee of the IFA, estimated only around 50 acres had been planted so far. These sustained wet periods and droughts are here to stay. Our weather patterns are changing and we have to adapt to them. When it comes to the potato sector, the rooster crop developed by Teagasc makes up most of the market. It also has a very long growing season that is just not compatible with the wet weather and later planting seasons we are experiencing. Tillage has probably been one of the sectors hit worst by the long period of wet weather. The ground and the majority of fields cannot carry any form of machinery at the moment and farmers are now facing the hard decision of whether to risk sowing or leave land fallow.

There is a limited window to sow crops and it is looking near impossible to plant certain ones. The ideal planting period for beans, winter wheat and oats has passed and the window is rapidly closing on being able to get any form of viable crop. When harvest times are delayed, there is a very significant reduction in yield and quality. The head of Teagasc's crop knowledge department, Michael Hennessy, has stated that 70% to 80% of all tillage crops would normally be planted at this stage but, this year, almost nothing has been done as far as spring crops are concerned.

Tillage is a highly important part of our agrifood sector and the rural economy and its future is in danger. Tillage production is currently limited to only about 7% of all agricultural land according to a report published yesterday by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland and Teagasc. Farmers are suggesting that there could be a drop of up to 11% in the acreage used for tillage this year following a 7% drop in 2023. This cannot become a trend year on year. That would mean the destruction of the tillage sector. A UCD report from 2020 shows that the Irish tillage sector generates €1.3 billion in economic outputs and supports 11,000 jobs and that is nowhere near the tillage sector's full potential. The sector also has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture. In many cases, it is already carbon neutral.

We should be doing everything we can to support sectors like the tillage sector, which is crucial to our food security and climate action, but despite all of this the sector is just not being supported properly and tillage farmers are under more severe pressure than ever before. The announcement of a €100 per hectare tillage payment to deal with immediate pressure is very welcome but it just does not go far enough. Farming organisations are clear that, in order to prevent farmers from leaving tillage entirely, a payment of €250 per hectare would be required. The year 2023 was devastating for tillage with difficult weather, high fuel and fertiliser costs and a significant fall in grain prices. Teagasc has estimated that tillage farm incomes for 2023 are expected to reduce to €37,000, a drop of 54% on the previous year. The overall drop in Irish tillage farmers' incomes equates to more than €260 million in 2023 when compared to 2022.

The State set out plans to grow tillage to a target of 400,000 ha by 2023 but, so far, the Government's plan is failing abysmally. This cannot all be blamed on the weather. Tillage farmers are finding it extremely difficult to rent land as other farmers, especially those adjusting to changes in the nitrates derogation, have the capacity to pay more to lease land. Tillage farmers are being priced out. They simply cannot compete.

We need to be innovative in ensuring that the tillage sector has a viable future. We need to look at measures like crop insurance for farmers, something that is common across Europe. They need interventions to enable them to compete in renting land and the Minister needs to address the policies that are forcing dairy farmers to consistently use more and more land. The Government's tillage incentive scheme did lead to an increase in the area under tillage but this was mainly of advantage to non-tillage farmers. This was especially demoralising as farmers who invested in tillage could not get the benefits of that scheme.

Increased Irish production of cereals, pulses, fruit and vegetables would make Irish agriculture more environmentally friendly, would support Irish producers and would improve our food security. Pivoting to tillage will be a challenge to the sector but it needs to happen. We need to shift our entire agricultural sector to support farmers and producers while improving food security in the long term. The weather patterns we are experiencing are a direct result of climate change. We cannot shy away from that. The climate and biodiversity crises are the single biggest threat to the future of farming. We have to help and support farmers to adapt to changing weather patterns and support them through the challenges they will face with a changing climate. Exceptional needs payments, while welcome, do not recognise the reality and the performance of the challenges farmers are facing. If we do not adapt our farming practices and supports, it will be absolutely devastating for future generations of farmers and for our country's food security.

We need to open up a conversation about the future of agriculture in this country. The farming community knows that better than anyone else. There is an opportunity here for an exciting transformation of our farming model but we have to be brave and honest enough to have that conversation. It was absolutely disgraceful for this Government to row back on the dairy reduction scheme, one of the recommendations of the final report of the Food Vision dairy group. We need to shift to a more sustainable model of farming and part of that is the need to gradually reduce the number of cattle. The same Department that incentivised farmers to increase their herds must incentivise farmers to reduce them. The Government needs to support more sustainable farming models rather than forcing farmers into more intensive methods just to make ends meet. This results in farming communities being blamed for poor Government policy and its impact on the environment. It is the overwhelming view of the scientific community that the agriculture sector will need to reduce emissions by 30% before 2030. Pushing back against that in order to keep the status quo will mean a sudden and difficult transition for family farms around the country as they have to change their practices. To avoid that, we must start now.

Deputy Jackie Cahill

I welcome this debate. I thank the Ministers for what they have done so far regarding the weather crisis. Even though we have had a few dry bright days, the damage that has been done by the long wet spell will not disappear over a few days of sunshine. Before I left home this morning, I walked to the paddocks for the cows. The grass that is there for the second rotation is virtually non-existent. This is for a number of reasons. One is the damage done by the cows the first time around. The second is that no chemical nitrogen was spread. All of that is going to have a serious impact on grass production for the next couple of weeks.

When it started a few years ago, the war in Ukraine gave Europe a shiver up its spine as regards food security. This weather event should do the same. We have taken food security for granted for far too long. Our agrifood industry is the backbone of our rural economy. Our dairy industry, which some people would like to target and decimate, is most definitely the driving force of rural Ireland. We see a significant fall in milk production this spring. That will have an impact on processors and their ability to pay a good price for milk. That will cause problems for farmers' bottom lines in 2024.

The Minister announced €100 a hectare for tillage farmers. That is very welcome. We are in the last week of April and there is still a lot of ground to be sown. I ask him to keep an eye on how tillage farmers are progressing over the year and on how profitable the sector will be in 2024. If yields are significantly down due to the late sowing, I would ask the Minister to examine whether further support could be given as we move into the back end of the year. Tillage farmers had a very bad year last year. They had bad weather, bad prices and bad yields. It was a perfect storm causing a crisis in tillage farming. I urge the Minister to monitor the situation and see whether further supports are needed as the year progresses.

Some tillage farmers are deciding whether to grow crops for livestock farmers. We should examine whether an encouragement could be offered to make it more viable to grow maize or beet for that purpose. It is going to be difficult to achieve a positive balance as regards fodder for 2024. At this stage of the year, farmers should be walking the fields to decide when to cut silage. Early cut silage should be cut in the next ten days to a fortnight. The reality is that a lot of that land has not even had chemical nitrogen applied to it yet. I was driving around my constituency yesterday evening and grass was being cut off a lot of land so that farmers could get a fresh start on establishing the main silage crop.

We are getting near to 1 May. Lads are cutting off and bagging the stale grass on fields to try to get fresh regrowth that will get slurry and chemical nitrogen. An awful lot will depend on the weather we get in the next six to eight weeks. That will determine what kind of silage or store of fodder will be there for the winter of 2024-25.

A three-week suspension of farm inspections was given during the worst of the weather. I ask the Minister to consider the farmers who were inspected over the previous three to four weeks and, for various reasons, might have suffered penalties. For example, a farmer contacted me who had farmyard manure after he cleaned out his calving pens. In springtime, he would normally take that to a field where it could be legally left for spreading later in the year. Whether it was for reseed or whatever, it would be spread later. Due to the weather conditions, he just could not get out of the yard. The manure was left in a heap in some corner of the yard. There are various reasons that happens. Despite the pressure that was on farms, where stock that would normally be out grazing were all still indoors, inspections happened in the previous three to four weeks and fines were imposed. I ask for that to be re-examined. I would go so far as to say there should be an amnesty for those farmers. They should definitely get a reinspection. Due to things that were completely outside their control, including weather-related reasons and the pure physical and mental pressure on them, farmers suffered fines during that period. I ask for those fines to be re-examined.

The date for the reduction in protein feeding for dairy cows is another issue. With the banding and stocking rates, etc., the recalculation of protein feed is most welcome. However, this year, with cows being indoors an awful lot longer, cows will have to be kept on a higher level of protein for longer. I ask the Minister for a 1 May cut-off for that. This is so that the summer regime, as we call it, for protein feeding will start cleanly from 1 May. I also ask for that calculation to be kept simple. We hear talk that what was fed in the wintertime and summer will be included in the calculation of the reduction in protein that will be used for the reduction in the organic stocking level for cows. At present, because of the amount of paperwork, farmers are getting completely frustrated with the bureaucracy that is there. I ask that the protein calculation, and the allowance that will be there for feeding a low-level protein during the summer months, be kept simple and kept on the calendar year. All these calculations and sums are being done, but farmers are wondering whether they will get X, Y or Z allowance. The bureaucracy attached to derogation at the moment is becoming increasingly frustrating.

Many farmers are at a low stocking intensity. In a year when there will be pressure on building up fodder stocks, I would like the Minister to consider that farmers on a low stocking rate are limited in the amount of chemical nitrogen they can spread. If they commit to growing extra silage for sale, they could be given a derogation to allow them to spread more chemical nitrogen. This could work very well in increasing our supplies of hay and silage in 2024. It is something that should be looked at. Farmers would greatly welcome it. Farmers on low stocking levels, under 130%, etc., are very limited in the amount of chemical nitrogen they can spread. In a year, that option should be given. All low-intensity farmers would not be interested in growing extra silage, but some might be interested in doing it for sale to other farmers, who believe they will be short of fodder. I ask the Minister to consider that.

To go back to tillage, the other issue in this back end is that of straw incorporation. Straw has been non-existent for the past month or six weeks. We are importing straw from the UK at present. The payment for tillage farmers should most definitely be maintained. Even if some farmyard manure had to make its way back onto tillage farms, the intent of that scheme should be kept in place. This year, with the pressure that will be on fodder supplies, we have to re-examine that incorporation scheme and keep the payment there for tillage farmers. If there were some way they could get organic manure back onto their land and still have their straw for sale, it has to be examined.

One thing that has to be learned from this winter is that there is a very significant need for slurry storage on all farms. I will make a couple of points. Any of us who are in farming know that you cannot have enough slurry storage. One of things that put real mental and physical strain on farmers this year, when normally they had no bother going out to spread slurry and do so when the nutrients would be well taken up by the land, was the fact that the land was just untraversable. That went on all spring. It put huge pressure on farmers mentally and physically. Although extra grants for slurry storage were announced under the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, in last year's budget, I ask the Minister to go back to examine that further to see if it can be increased even more for farmers. Slurry storage is a key weapon in our armoury to win the battle for water quality. This winter really brought that home to us.

On farm investments and VAT, Revenue has changed its interpretation of what is VAT rebatable. I brought this up at parliamentary party level on a couple of occasions. We have been constantly pressing the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, on it. We are at last making progress with Revenue. My understanding is that it is looking at it again and committing to reverting to what was there for the previous 50 years. We need to make it clear for farmers, who are investing in infrastructure on their farms, that the VAT rebate that was in place heretofore for whatever they were doing will be in place again. This VAT issue was first brought to my attention 12 months ago. The VAT rebate for slurry bags was the first thing Revenue took away. Slurry bags are used by small- to medium-sized farmers as a lagoon for holding slurry. Revenue maintained those slurry bags could be moved to another location. Anyone who has ever worked with slurry will know that to move something that holds 100,000 gallons of slurry to another location might be possible on paper, but would be a complete non-runner physically. Throughout the past 12 months, Revenue has increased the number of items it has taken away from farmers on which they are able to reclaim VAT. I welcome the fact Revenue has gone back to the drawing board on this. We need clarity on it because constant investment in farmyard infrastructure is essential. This winter most definitely underlined that for all farmers. The Minister will be in Brussels fighting hard to maintain our derogation as we move into 2025. He will be the only minister out there looking for a derogation. If we can show that we are investing very significantly in slurry storage on farms, it will be to our benefit.

I welcome all the Government has done to help farmers through this crisis. It was an extremely long, hard and wet winter. It put farmers under huge physical pressure as well as financial pressure. As we go through 2024, I know the Minister will not be found wanting, if other situations arise due to this winter whereby farmers will need extra support.

Deputy Pauline Tully

Ongoing bad weather has created huge problems for farmers this spring, with fields too wet for planting or taking livestock.

Many farmers face fodder shortages because animals have been in sheds for too long. They cannot access grass in the fields because of wet ground conditions. Tillage farmers cannot get onto their land to plant their crops. My neighbours' fields are still empty. They cannot put the cattle out, and cattle would always have been out by April.

According to Met Éireann, 2023 was the third wettest year on record, going back to 1940. At this stage, 2024 seems to be on a similar path. The seemingly non-stop rainfall and shocking ground conditions are severely hampering farm operations and adding hugely to costs and stress levels for farmers. Farmers always put a buffer in their supplies which normally gets them through an early autumn or bad spring. However, we got both, which is highly unusual, and surplus supplies are running out fast. After almost a year of above-average rainfall, farmers need support to alleviate the extreme burden they face.

The Minister has no control over the weather but he has control over the response to such challenging conditions. This situation is affecting farmers across the board. It is not confined to one sector so a comprehensive response is needed. Farming organisations have been calling on the Government to put supports in place for months. The Irish Farmers' Association, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association and Irish Grain Growers have all advised it is an extremely stressful time, both mentally and physically, for farmers. They are losing money and need supports put in place now. Farmers are having to buy in extra fodder, if they can afford it. In many cases, they cannot.

To date the Government has adopted a wait-and-see approach. Some supports such as the fodder transport scheme and the deferral of farm inspections have been announced and are welcome but they have been piecemeal. The Minister introduced €100 per hectare for the tillage sector. I am not sure that will be enough. The sector has made clear its huge difficulty in getting spring crops sown as a result of soil conditions, while many winter crops will have to be re-sown. Figures for autumn planting show 80,000 acres fewer than normal were sown. In spring, less than 5% of crops have gone into the ground so far.

The Government response to the acute financial pressure farmers are under has been muted and unimaginative to date. The Minister and Government have waited as long as possible to announce supports, months after farmers and organisations sounded alarm bells. The approaching fodder shortage was well flagged by Sinn Féin. My colleague, Deputy Kerrane, called on the Minister to outline a response to a possible fodder shortage in January. Farmers have been raising concerns about fodder and silage supplies for months.

Mercifully, there has been a recent positive turn in the weather which may allow spring activities to commence or resume. However, this good weather could be short-lived and it is not acceptable for the Government to hold out and keep farmers waiting for supports they badly need. The Government should have responded months ago but did not.

The increase in the price of fuel is also having an impact on farmers. I call on the Government not to introduce any more rises this year and to review it at the end of the year. I spoke to an intensive pig farmer who had so much slurry he had to have six lorry loads of it transported this week from Cavan to another county. I think it was over the far side of Roscommon. That is partly the nitrates but partly the weather. It is causing him an awful lot of financial hardship. We need to look at alternatives to using slurry. There are alternatives but plans need to be put in place because we could be facing continual weather changes like this whereby the weather becomes wetter and it becomes very hard to spread slurry.

Deputy Paul Murphy

I welcome financial supports for small farmers during this bad weather. Unfortunately for them and society in general, the weather will keep getting worse and farming will become more and more difficult due to climate change.

Yesterday at the climate committee, we heard presentations from the authors of Ireland's climate change assessment, an official Government report. They told us average temperatures in this country are already about 1°C higher than in the early 20th century. 2022 was the hottest year on record and then came 2023. This 1°C rise has led to an increase in heavy precipitation extremes and 7% more annual rainfall. The flooding last autumn is an example of that. The near-constant rain since last July leaving fields across the country waterlogged and unsuitable for sowing crops or grazing is another.

The author's of Ireland's climate change assessment warned that if effective action is delayed, we are looking at 3°C of heating by the end of the century, and that this would leave the Irish climate unrecognisable. If flooding and an inability to sow crops or graze cattle is the result of 1°C of warming, imagine the catastrophic impact 3°C will have.

This is a Government report. The Department of agriculture should be paying it as much attention as the Department of the environment. The Minister should be responding to the bad weather as one of the impacts of climate change on farming because that is what it is. Instead, incredibly, he is responding by doubling down on a model of industrial agriculture that is the second biggest cause of the climate crisis globally and the leading cause in this country. One quarter of Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock farming. More than 90% of that is for export; it is not for people here to eat.

The Minister's food vision group recommended two years ago that the number of dairy cattle would have to reduce by 65,000 per year for the next three years to have any hope of reaching our emissions reductions targets. It recommended that a voluntary exit and reduction scheme be introduced to compensate dairy farmers. The ICMSA said: "This created an expectation, and farmers began making preparations on the basis that the scheme was on the way." That would have been absolutely appropriate but last week the Minister confirmed there will be no voluntary exit and reduction scheme.

Not only that, but the Government will be the only EU state to attempt to keep the nitrates derogation. Every other EU state has recognised the reality of water pollution and the climate crisis and realised the derogation has to go, but not Ireland. A press statement from the Minister on 17 April states that, in light of continued challenging weather conditions, the Minister is extending the deadlines for nitrates derogation applications. It is insanity that the Minister is responding to flooding caused by climate change by enabling big dairy farmers to make both climate change and water pollution even worse. Floods wash nitrates from fertiliser and animal waste into our rivers, lakes and streams.

What is the purpose of the nitrates derogation? It is to enable big dairy farmers to overstock their land to maximise profits for themselves and the dairy industry, and to hell with the cost to water quality, biodiversity or the climate. That is why the bosses of the dairy industry are hell-bent on keeping it. Earlier this month the CEO of Tirlán Jim Bergin said the focus has to be on two things: how we support our farmers through the current climatic conditions and how we retain the derogation. He suggested we fight on our backs to hold the derogation.

The same contradictory focus has been adopted hook, line and sinker by the Minister for agriculture. Like every Minister for agriculture before him, he is not so much a Minister for agriculture as a Minister for big farmers and agribusiness. The Minister seems to believe that, with water pollution and climate change, it is possible to keep doing the same thing over and over but somehow get a different result.

The majority of ordinary people, both urban and rural, are more realistic. A recent survey carried out by Friends of the Earth and Ireland Thinks found 82% of people think we should pay farmers more for what we need most from the land: local food, clean water and less climate pollution. Some 50% think we should support farmers to diversify away from beef and dairy, compared to only 37% who disagreed. This is the type of approach the Minister should advocate. Instead, he bows to industry pressure and pretends business as usual can continue. Last year Dairy Industry Ireland, the representative body for the big milk processors, essentially threatened the Minister with being sued if he followed the food vision group's advice and went ahead with a voluntary exit and reduction scheme.

They claim that they were encouraged by Government policy to invest billions of euro in milk processing to cater for milk volume growth. As a result, they say they have a case for compensation if milk output shrinks due to a cattle reduction scheme and this cuts the return on their investment. Where have we seen such tactics before? They were used by big oil and gas companies, which threatened to sue if governments took meaningful action to phase out fossil fuels because that would reduce their return on investment and leave them with stranded assets. Countries across Europe are leaving the Energy Charter Treaty in order that big oil and gas can no longer sue them for taking effective climate action. The Government must take the same approach towards big dairy and the dairy industry. We cannot allow a wealthy elite to hold us all over a barrel and demand either that we bail them out for their bad investments or give them a licence and call it a derogation to continue to pollute. Instead, we need to direct the billions of euro needed for just transition in farming towards those who need it, by which I mean small farmers and not the billionaire bosses of the meat and dairy industry like Larry Goodman who want us all to pay for their gambling debts. To do that we need to nationalise the food processors and the big agribusiness so they can be redirected toward supporting small farmers as part of a climate neutral, eco-socialist food system that enhances biodiversity instead of undermining it.

An Ceann Comhairle

I thank Deputy Murphy. By way of comment, I respect your enthusiasm for your subject matter but I know many dairy farmers and I do not believe I would put any of them in the wealthy elite category that you seem to put them in.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Most are not, but the big ones are. Do you not think there are any rich dairy farmers?

Deputy Martin Heydon

The Deputy paints a picture of industrialisation.

An Ceann Comhairle

There are rich people in lots of professions.

Deputy Paul Murphy

There are, yes.

An Ceann Comhairle

Anyway, so be it. The Deputy is more than entitled to speak, thanks be to God. I will defend with my last breath his right to express his view-----

Deputy Martin Heydon

I am sure that plays well in Tallaght.

Deputy Paul Murphy

It is an unusual intervention by the Ceann-----

An Ceann Comhairle

It might be, but I do unusual things from time to time.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Particularly aimed at People Before Profit I would say.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not correct.

Deputy Paul Murphy

I would say the record proves it.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not strictly true.

Deputy Michael Moynihan

It is quite sickening to listen to people who talk in an ill-informed manner about the agriculture industry. Rarely, if ever, have I commented on any contributions by any other Member of the House in my time here, but I must take a deep intake of breath after the previous speaker's comments.

I am a small farmer. I was a dairy farmer, and I come from a farming heartland. We would like to think that we are small to medium-size farmers within our community. To equate the farmers who have worked particularly hard over the past nine months and tell us we are a wealthy elite simply beggars belief. It is time that we, as a society and as a people, understood exactly what farmers do. We understand what farming is, namely that it involves producing food. We must respect the farmers who have continued to farm in adverse weather conditions over the past nine months. Even in the past week or ten days since the weather cleared up, they have been ready to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to make sure that crops are planted and there is food on our tables.

The discussion and commentary on farming over the last while has been consistently about undermining it and that somehow it is a dirty business, a wealthy business and a business that does not fit into the current discussions around climate or climate change. In reality farmers produce food and many commodities. Post Covid, we see that people can take holidays at home and abroad. Thankfully, our country bounced back and is going reasonably well enough to allow that. However, farming needs to continue in order to facilitate food production. There is an issue if we do not respect those who are producing food at the very top level.

Farmers have had regulation after regulation, especially over the past 30 years since the outbreak of mad cow disease and perhaps before that too. They have absorbed those regulations at the farm gate to produce a traceable product. We must stand by farmers. We have to understand that farmers are working extremely hard and that their basic product is what we, as human beings, eat. The only thing that goes into our digestive systems is food. If we can be sure of the product we are eating, then we can be sure of better health. We must acknowledge that farming here and across the northern hemisphere in general has a massive amount of regulation surrounding it. Farmers are producing food that is top of the range.

It is sickening in the extreme to hear commentators continuously talking down the agriculture industry. They talk it down as if it society would be way better off if we closed it all down. If we closed it all down society would be hungry. We are heading towards having 10 billion people on our planet. If we have to make sure there is food production in the next ten, 15 or 25 years, then we would need to increase food production by 35%. This increase of 35% would be needed to make sure that human beings on this planet are fed. Yet people turn around and belittle farmers and belittle the agriculture industry. A shutdown, even just for the current period, would be short-lived, a cheap skate measure and wrong.

We must ensure that farming can continue. Right across the country, people are leaving farming because they have come to a certain age and have devoted 35, 40 or 45 years of their life to food production. We must ensure that young generation of people go into farming, that there is a livelihood to be made, and there is a standard of living they can get out of farming while not working 24-7, all the while producing food. All the farmers I meet - I know them and can talk about the individuals and family farm units - have worked extremely hard for generations and really pride themselves on what they produce. They pride themselves on the dairy industry, on the solids and the amount of milk they produce and on the efficiencies they have developed in recent years. If we take a reasonable look at it, we will see that there are fewer dairy cows in the country now than there were 40 years ago. There is more milk production because of the efficiencies that have been brought about but there are fewer dairy cows than was the case 40 years ago. It is important to acknowledge the efficiencies at the farm gate.

We must also acknowledge the massive employment for which the co-ops are responsible. I can speak of my own co-op, the Boherbue Co-op, which is a small operation. I pay tribute to Declan O'Keeffe, who is retiring after many years as steward of the Boherbue Co-op. I wish them well into the future because it is important that these small co-ops are kept there. Consider also the North Cork Co-op. It has a product that is sold right across the world. There is also the Kerry Co-op, which is a leader in the context of what it produces. There are many fine people working in research and development across these co-ops. They are producing and looking at the product to see how they can gain efficiencies going into the future.

If there is one thing we have seen over the past number of months, particularly during the winter, it is the impact of regulation. We went into the first and second week of February and the weather was deteriorating after a particularly wet period. We should have a mechanism whereby special responses by the Departments of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Environment, Climate and Communications would be triggered earlier. We had the fodder group meeting, but the Departments should be looking to act earlier. We welcome the decision by the Minister to extend the nitrates deadline until the end of April. However, maybe in the heat of the battle in late March or early April a signal should have been sent. We should be looking at what is happening much earlier. Spring is particularly challenging for all farmers. That has been the case particularly this spring.

If we look at this matter and ask what we can do to ensure that we have a future in agriculture, that more people will be involved in agriculture, that there will be more food production on the island and that food will be produced more efficiently, we can see that the answer is a reduction in regulation. Everybody is talking about the regulation and how they have to comply with regulation after regulation and how they have jumped through hoops. We understand the various ways regulations have developed but if there was a way of streamlining regulations at the farm gate, it would remove a great deal of the pressure. The next CAP is starting. I welcome the comments by the Minister on 4 March last about simplifying the CAP. That is important, but it is also important that we have a meaningful reduction in the amount of regulation. We had the nitrates directive this week and the single farm payment or the basic income support for sustainability payment. There are deadlines all the way. Computer systems have been developed in a massive way. Would it be possible to simplify the regulations in order to allow people to do what they do best? Let them farm and produce food that is sustainable and that is needed across the world.

Comments to the effect that we export most of our food were made. We are feeding the world with our food. We should not be ashamed about that in any way. We should be proud of what we are doing. A total of 12.5% of the infant formula consumed throughout the world is produced in Ireland. Think about it. Imagine the catastrophes that we are averting by having that product on the world market. It is important that we acknowledge this.

Various radio and television programmes discuss farming. Some of them are dedicated to farming practices and to what is happening throughout the country. It is important that they talk to those engaged in vibrant and meaningful farming. Two meetings on renewables were held over the past couple of weeks, one in Cork and the other in Kilkenny. Significant crowds turned up because farmers at the farm gate are looking at ways of being more efficient and taking energy from solar or elsewhere to reduce their costs. I have seen technology being developed by Liscarroll Engineering that involves taking energy from solar panels and storing it on ice. Do not ask me to explain the science behind this. However, using this method would reduce the costs of the average dairy farm by over 25% year on year. Significant technologies are available. Over generations, farmers have embraced technology and new ways of farming. I know there is an issue relating to state aid but if farmers are producing energy off their sheds and putting solar panels on them, and we have TAMs for that, could that be sold back to the grid? Could it be arranged in a way that it becomes part of the farmers' income as well as reducing their costs? There are many ways we can do it.

I am certain that there is one thing we cannot do. We cannot reduce food production. If we do, we will cause challenges across the world. We are feeding the world with our excellent products. We can be proud of what we are exporting, but we cannot reduce the level of production. The only way to do this is by ensuring that there are sufficient numbers of farmers and that farming and farmers are respected. Farmers have to be respected not just in this House or by public representatives but also by rural communities. We see some people cocking their noses at smells. This is a vibrant indigenous community. We have to ensure it is respected there and in commentary. The kind of language used by the previous speaker is not acceptable when you are talking about food production because we are basically feeding human beings. All the other challenges are there. They can be met but we cannot reduce food production because in ten, 15 or 20 years' time, the world will pay a massive price for it.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Lawless has asked me to acknowledge that members of the Sallins Sunshine Club is in the Public Gallery. They certainly brought the sunshine to Dublin today. I thank them for that. Our next contributor is an acknowledged expert on matters agricultural.

Deputy Matt Carthy

I think the Minister would dispute that, but I will take it as high praise indeed. The takeaway from the speeches of the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, is something I have spoken about on a number of occasions. This is what I consider to be the lack of vision for the future of Irish agriculture. The Minister updated us on some of the immediate supports that have been put in place - weather supports that are desperately needed by our farming families. I know any supports during the current climate will be very much welcomed and I am sure no farmer in the State would not argue that we need to go further in terms of immediate supports, but these types of crises will happen more and more frequently. That is an acknowledged fact. It is an acknowledged consequence of climate change. In order to deal with that, we must put a long-term strategy in place based on a vision premised on the importance of the Irish family farm network.

We know farmers will be asked to do much more in terms of reducing emissions and protecting and enhancing biodiversity and we know there are a number of things farmers can do, will do and want to do in order to be able to assist in playing their role in that regard. The area I will cite where we know the interests of agriculture and climate can collide is clearly the area of forestry. The programme for Government set out a target of 8,000 ha of new afforestation for each year of this Government. After almost four years in office, the Government has barely managed to reach that target overall. In other words, little over 8,000 ha have been planted in the lifetime of the Government. We will hear Ministers tell us that they have turned a corner. That will sound familiar to many members because they like me will recall how at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine in February 2022, the Minister commended the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, acknowledging the tremendous work she did in "leading out and turning a corner". They will also recall how in November 2022, when launching the new forestry programme, the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, said that the Department had turned a corner in the context of forestry licensing. They will also recall how in November 2023, at the Department's climate conference in the Aviva Stadium, the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, maintained that she and her officials had turned the corner on forestry licensing and that the system was now well oiled. There could be a joke that so many corners being turned bring us back to where we started but the fact is that there is failure in the area where farmers can most rapidly and obviously have an impact on climate action and this failure is not on their part but on the part of the Government.

Despite all the rhetoric, the numbers this year do not reflect any corner being turned. The target of issuing 100 licences per week has been met in just one year so far. The average is 65 per week. New afforestation in the first quarter of this year was lower than in any other year under this Government except for the farce that was last year when the Government allowed the best part of a calendar year to pass with virtually no licences being issued. All the while, the Government talks about complex regulations and the need for approval from Government but we know there is an exact parallel with regard to what is possible. A similar forestry crisis was faced in Scotland, which hired the same consultant as the Irish Government to set out a strategy. The difference was that under the Scottish forestry system, within 24 months, the annual afforestation rate rose from 4,600 hectares to 12,200 ha per annum.

They are now setting targets of more than 18,000 ha for the next number of years. Five years on from Ireland employing the same consultant, the Minister of State is failing to issue licences. Afforestation is in crisis. Those I engage with - I am sure it is the same for many Members - say that any interest in afforestation has been completely dashed by the actions of the Ministers and the Government. There is no clear sign yet as to when licensing delays will be resolved. We have no clear sign as to when afforestation rates will meaningfully increase. There is no strategy for addressing the ash dieback crisis that is affecting many farmers.

All of this goes to the heart of the Government's approach to forestry and wider issues. I listened at the weekend to the Green Party slapping themselves on the back for their record in government in terms of climate action. When it comes to forestry, an area they have direct control of, they are failing miserably. People who are failing so miserably lose the right to lecture others about their responsibilities to the climate, the environment or the biodiversity crisis.

An Ceann Comhairle

I call Deputy Lowry, who is sharing time with Deputies Shanahan and Tóibín.

Deputy Michael Lowry

This year will go down in living memory as the year that brought farmers across the country to their knees. Incessant rain has caused devastation across every county, leaving farmers and their families reeling in its wake. We have an estimated 6.9 million ha of land overall in Ireland and 64% of this land is suitable for agriculture. However, the Irish agricultural sector overall has changed in recent decades. There are now just 135,000 farms. That is down from 223,000 in 1980. The reduced availability of land is a key factor in this decline. As the country developed and cities, towns and villages spread their borders, many small farmers were swallowed up, leaving the average-sized farm at some 80-plus acres.

Ireland's farming and agricultural sector must be protected. It must be supported to enable it to survive and thrive. The security of quality food is of paramount importance. The weather in recent times has become the enemy of the farmer. The seasonal nature of farming is what keeps it turning. This past year has seen a persistent cycle of rainfall. Unprecedented levels of relentless rain have decimated countless acres of land in every county. Winter began earlier than expected. It began raining in July and has barely ceased since.

Tillage is a big issue across the country, particularly in Tipperary. The work that needs to be done is enormous but the window of opportunity is closing. The €100 per acre support announced by the Government will not meet the needs of farmers. The fact that sowing can only begin at this stage will result in much lower yields, and lower yields will mean significantly reduced income. This blow would have been far less severe had the Government's 2024 allocation for tillage farmers not been €30 million down on the 2023 allocation. Farmers are already trying to budget ahead before the winter turns sour. Small farmers are those most impacted by the current situation. Dairy, sheep and suckler farmers have been unable to put animals out on the land. They are paying through the nose for fodder, with a huge number of animals having been housed since last September instead of the usual time of late October. These animals have remained housed up to this month and it has not been possible to safely turn them out to grass. Crop management has also fallen behind and it has been impossible to get into the fields with fertilisers and sprays. Having a strict regime for this work is critical to ensuring good yields but farmers have stood in despair as days turned into weeks without being able to carry out this work. The day-to-day pattern of work for farmers has ceased to exist. One farmer was quoted recently as saying he was standing at the window looking out at the rain while holding yet another troubling bank statement in his hand.

The mental toll that this prolonged and soul-destroying weather has taken on farmers is enormous. The sense of helplessness they feel is overwhelming. They are victims of something that is completely outside of their control. They worry about what has happened this year and they have fears for the years ahead. They need help. They do not need talk of help or debates like this; what they need is real and tangible help and they need it soon. Without such help, the writing may be on the wall for many farmers across Tipperary and the rest of the country.

Deputy Matt Shanahan

I concur with the Ceann Comhairle’s remarks regarding Deputy Paul Murphy's contribution. I am not sure where in the country - never mind what part of the planet - what the Deputy had to say related to.

Farming is heading fast to a crossroads and that intersection includes farm unviability, farm loss, future consolidated factory farming and economic loss to regional and rural communities. My county of Waterford has a mix of farming. All parts of the sector there are under extreme pressure. This pressure is most evident in the tillage sector. Months of rainfall have saturated the land, preventing the sowing and harvesting of winter crops. While the recent €100 support announced for tillage farmers was welcome, we are now into a reduced growing season and it is likely the harvest will not be sufficient to cover this year’s expenditure, let alone make up the losses for last year.

The fragility of food security means it should never be taken for granted. In the lifetime of our parents, war and malign ideologies led to serious food shortages in Europe and famine in the USSR states and in Communist China, all man-made disasters either intended or resulting from plain government incompetence. The wisdom of Europe's post-war CAP should never be taken for granted either. It is true that modern farming methods have improved food supply, consistency and quality, but it should not be overlooked that in the lifetime of some of our family members, the world population has increased from 2.5 billion to more than 8 billion today.

The recent bad weather in northern Europe will have a knock-on effect on the supply of some foods, especially plant-based ones, across the Continent as well as in Ireland. Therefore, the reduction of supports to the food producers in the fields is ill-considered, unwise and irresponsible. Ireland's commercial tillage sector has seen its CAP-designated supports reduced drastically in the past 20 years, and with increasing rapidity recently. This will ultimately lead to what is a plant-based food system becoming totally uneconomic and unsustainable. The Government recently introduced measures that it said are helpful but these are merely sticking plasters being applied to a seriously sick sector. The tillage sector in Ireland is very kind to the environment, with low carbon dioxide emissions, and it should be viewed as being a vital national asset.

What is needed? The first thing is the reduction of well-meaning but impractical edicts from officeholders in central Government. We also need a realisation that measures imposed on other sectors can and do impact on Ireland's tillage sector. We need a re-coupling of supports to genuine tillage farmers. We need a guarantee that wastewater and sewage sludges being applied to farmland do not contain any poisons, industrial pharma, hospital waste, hydrocarbons or unknown pollutants. These could result in farmland exclusion from food production in the future. In other words, we do not want our food-producing land being used as a dump for the above waste products.

Most of all, we need to dispense with the building urban-rural divide. Farming is the backbone of our rural and regional communities. It is embedded in rural social, economic and community activity. When farming is going well in the country, the country is going well, but farming is not going well at present. These future custodians of the land must be better recognised and better supported by the State, and the recent divisions that have been created around climate and environmental narratives must change also. The future of Ireland is intertwined with the future of farming. It is about time the people, the media and the politicians started to understand that more clearly.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

Farming as we know it is being significantly run down by the Government. I believe farming has been made the fall guy of climate change. This is bizarre and absolutely false. It is incredible that we live in a country where the level of air travel and the number of data centres are still increasing, yet the finger is being pointed by the Government and the political establishment at farmers as if they are the threat in terms of climate change.

Farming is also being sacrificed by the Government in terms of preserving its relationship with the EU. We saw the same thing happen with fishing, which was gutted by the political establishment in this country - a cap-tipping political establishment that has refused to stand up to the European Union. We have reached a situation whereby only 15% of the fish caught in Irish waters are caught by Irish fishermen and fisherwomen.

The same treatment is now about to be meted out to the farming industry. This is quite shocking because the other issue farming is suffering from is that we have a very Dublin-centric Government. The centre of gravity of this Government is in south Dublin. There are always exceptions to the rule. There is a constituency of Dublin Rathdown where all four TDs are ministers and there are ten counties in the west and midlands of the country where there are no Ministers at all. Regional and rural Ireland is not at the decision-making table on a regular basis, except in a token fashion. We have an incredible situation currently happening in farming. We just need to look to Teagasc. This body has stated that 30% of farmers are making a loss. Only about 35% of farmers are making a living because somebody is working off the farm. Only about 37% of farmers are actually making a living from their farm itself. One of the reasons this is happening is that we have an industry structure where food is very profitable, but unfortunately the supply chain contains factories, supermarkets and the farmers. Most of the profit is landing in the hands of the factories and supermarkets. This is being allowed to happen because the Government is not holding their competitive power to account. Yes, we have the food ombudsman's office, but we have yet to see any muscles flexed in putting manners on the factories and the supermarkets regarding their profits.

We are now in a situation where, every year, there are fewer and fewer farmers in the country. This is a startling situation and has an enormous negative impact on regional and rural Ireland. Now farmers are in the middle of another shocking situation. The weather has been a disaster since July last year. Cattle were brought in off the land at least a month earlier before winter. Cattle that should have been out at the end of February and St. Patrick's Day are only now getting onto the land. This is an incredible situation which is causing enormous damage. Straw is being imported from Britain at the moment. Planting is also being delayed, which will have significant knock-on effects in terms of the workload of farmers and the ability of farmers to still plant and still be able to harvest at the end of the day. I know farmers who are still struggling to deal with slurry because they have nowhere to put the excess and farmers who are drawing silage, some of it six or seven years old, from neighbouring farms.

Unless real attention is given to farmers we are not going to get to a situation where we have a sustainable farming community. I know the Government comes in with this fund here and that fund there at times of difficulties. I welcome those funds of those times although I believe they are piecemeal and not enough. We need to take a completely new approach to farming. We need to realise that food security is of enormous importance to the country. Food security can only be guaranteed if we have a farming sector that is actually viable, has a future and does not have to deal with the extra costs and regulation the Government is imposing. I do not see this happening. I do not see the Government showing any great understanding of how to put farming on a proper structure in future. The first way to do it is to tackle the competitive powers of the factories and supermarkets. I do not believe that the Government has the energy or the backbone to do so. We also need to tackle the European Union when it comes to extra pressure that has been put on our farmers. Again, I do not see the will or the backbone from the Government to do this.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Murnane O'Connor is sharing time with Deputy Feighan.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

Like all the other speakers I have farmers coming into my office from Borris, Bagenalstown, Tullow, Hacketstown, Rathvilly and Carlow itself - I have covered them all - and they are telling me they did not get to sow winter corn. They talk about bringing back seed because they did not get to sow. It has become a huge issue this year. Potato farmers are constantly on to me about how poor the planting conditions were this year. Only 50 acres out of 21,000 acres have been planted by potato farmers this year. My understanding is that this is unheard of. According to Teagasc, which we all know, and which has a fabulous research facility in Oak Park in Carlow, inclement weather has delayed the planting of crops and led to crop harvest failure, higher bedding, feeding and housing costs for those with farm animals, and generally has resulted in tougher farming conditions. This is not just farmers talking. These are the statistics.

According to Met Éireann, the second half of 2023, was exceptionally wet with numerous flooding events throughout the country. There were annual rainfall totals of above average at most stations. July 2023 was the wettest July on record. There were two storms in August, more heavy rainfall events in late September, record rainfall in the south for October and above-average rainfall for December.

The Minister knows that down the line consumers will be hit by the cost of potatoes, for example. There will be a lack of potatoes which means the farmers will be on a non-competitive footing straight away.

The land is still wet so a lot of work still cannot be done. Although the weather has been better in recent days, thank God, and there are a lot more tractors on the road. I have seen in recent days when I was out canvassing the number of tractors on the road is really welcome. It has only been a few days but we need a much longer spell of nice weather to repair the huge damage that has been done in past months.

Farmers also tell me that there is going to be a fodder shortage, which means we will have to buy in fodder. We do not even know if we can do this because conditions have bad all around the world. It is important that farmers get supports now to combat these weather challenges. My two daughters are married to small farmers. I talk to the IFA daily but I particularly listen to these two farmers. They tell me that many small farmers hold down one or two other jobs because they are finding it hard to survive. Farmers work seven days a week. It is not the kind of job where a person can forget it for a day and take a day off. You just cannot do that. Someone has to be on the farm at all times. As a Government, we have to be very appreciative of the work our farmers do for us and the work they have done. They got us out of famines. They have done more work to bring this country back on its feet than anyone else. It is important we appreciate and give what support we can to them.

From talking to them, I know that many of them are struggling. We can see that climate change will be a huge issue. I know the Minister and the Minister of State are committed to putting supports in place. Farmers do appreciate these supports. The Minister has been in Carlow on many occasions in recent months. He has spoken to the farmers and he has heard their concerns. We have to listen to them and give them the supports. If we do not do so, I am being told many farmers' sons or daughters will not want to stay in farming. This would be a disaster. We have to give them the supports, work with them and do the best we can.

Members have probably seen on the news the fact that a fire has been raging on Mount Leinster for the past three days. Many families live in the area. We have to be very mindful of them and of the wildlife in the area. I compliment the fire and emergency services and the gardaí who have been there for the past three nights. It is worrying and we might have to look at it further. I compliment everyone in Carlow who has been involved in the effort.

I am honoured to work with the Carlow farmers. We have a huge population of farmers in the county. They need to know they are being listened to and that we can put supports in place for them. All they want is a bit of help and support. Representatives from Carlow IFA attended a meeting of Carlow County Council a few weeks ago, which I also attended. It was very good that they are going around the country and working with everyone. As the representatives said, it is important we work with them, listen to them and do what we can to help and support our farmers. As I said, Carlow is a really big farming area. I said to them, and I will continue to say, that the Government is committed and it will do what it can.

I met the Taoiseach myself in Carlow. He came into the office. He was in Carlow on Friday and I believe he met some farmers, which is very welcome. It is important that our Taoiseach was in Carlow and met farmers there. I had told them already that the Minister for Agriculture was talking to farmers and had agreed to work with them as well. All of us in Government have to work together to show that we are there to work with all farmers, big, medium, and small. Every farmer is important to us. The message that we need to send out is that it does not matter what bit of land a farmer has or what size it is, we are there to work with them and give them our full support.

Deputy Frankie Feighan

I thank the Minister and Minister of State for the work they are doing. We have dealt with many evolving issues in the past four years since they took office and I thank them for sitting down and listening, not only to me but to the farmers in my constituency. I appreciate that. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the farmers I represent and to highlight the unique challenges that many of them have to face due to marginal land holdings. The constituency I represent which includes the hinterland of north Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim and south Donegal has a very strong agricultural output, with a particularly high number of dry-stock farmers. Dry-stock farming far outweighs any other farming enterprise in my area. The Minister and Minister of State both know the constituency well. It effectively runs from Donegal town to Longford and from the Cavan border over as far as Ballina. It is a very wide rural constituency where most of the farmers are part-time. They are feeding their animals before and after their daily work commitments. To compound all of this, most of the land mass is fair to poor and is difficult to maintain. Given the huge amount of rainfall in recent times, it will take weeks to dry out but only if the rain stops. I am in Dublin a lot but I know it rains twice as much in Sligo and the west of Ireland than it does here. If it is cloudy or sunny in Dublin and I ring home, it is nearly always raining in Sligo. We have a saying in Sligo that if you cannot see Ben Bulben, it is raining and if you can see it, it is about to rain. It is the most beautiful place but unfortunately, there are issues there. Maybe we should get a grant in the west of Ireland to compensate for the difficulties we have with rain. No offence to the Ceann Comhairle who is from Kildare but it does rain a lot more in the west.

Farmers in my region work harder for less reward because of the challenges posed by their land, the amount of rainfall and the fact that their holdings are generally smaller. I acknowledge the introduction of the fodder transport scheme. Farmers have acted responsibly and have built up fodder surpluses but it is certainly running short on some farms. This support scheme must help to move fodder from the places where it is plentiful to those farmers who need it most. We must also acknowledge the efforts of the farmer-led cooperatives to support this measure and to help coordinate it alongside Teagasc, which has set up a helpline.

Hopefully the weather will continue to improve in the days and weeks ahead and farmers can start to catch up on work. I ask the Minister to keep in mind that what is looming in many farmers' minds now is next winter and all that needs to be done before then. We want farmers to be confident about the sector and we need to support them if we are to build their confidence back up after the hammering they have taken. I would welcome any measures that will provide farmers on marginal land holdings with animal meal vouchers or, at the very least, targeted innovations to assist such farmers. All of these difficulties pile the pressure on farmers who are financially exposed and have loans based on productivity. The weather is directly impacting their financial outcomes and leading to mental pressures.

The Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, will remember that when I was a Minister of State in the Department of Health with responsibility for the national drugs strategy, health and well-being, we launched the On Feirm Ground scheme which presented a genuine opportunity to equip farm advisers with a toolkit of supports related to physical and psychological well-being. Farmers, male and female, received targeted benefits from this scheme by being able to access reliable and consistent health information and supports to improve their health and well-being. Unfortunately the fodder crisis is now having an impact on the mental health and well-being of our farmers. It is important to recognise this and do what we can to provide meaningful supports. While I welcome the short-term responses that have been introduced, we cannot take our eye off the ball over the coming months. There must be a continued focus on protecting and supporting our farmers and family farms. I urge the Minister to review the situation for farmers again to see what can be done for the most marginalised and for those affected by the recent poor weather and excessive rainfall.

Again, I thank the Minister and Minister of State for the work they have done to date. They have sat down and listened to farmers and their representatives, as well as to politicians from all parties and none. I am sure they will continue to listen and I wish them well in their work.

Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú

We all know the situation because we have all dealt with farmers across our constituencies. They have spoken to us about the difficulties they have had to deal with lately. To some extent we knew from January that we were going to have a fodder shortage and that particular issues would need to be addressed.

I cannot let this moment go without bringing up again the serious floods in north County Louth, particularly in the Cooley Peninsula. In fairness, Teagasc has been to the area, has surveyed a number of farms, assessed the damage and determined the works that need to be done. As we acknowledged in previous conversations about this, part of the problem is that there is not an off-the-shelf system for dealing with these sorts of situations. I hope the Minister and his team will look at the Teagasc report and we will see the necessary supports provided to those farmers who have been severely impacted by those floods. I would not get away with talking on agricultural issues without raising this matter. It is an issue that is constantly being raised with me by Councillor Antóin Watters.

I also raise this issue because a number of farmers in that area have contacted me about the fact that supports were given out to some in the past, in relation to Foot and Mouth, for example, but there were questions regarding disparities between certain farmers. There may be a need to look at this. This is the subject of two questions I have submitted to the Minister for tomorrow. We will see if the questions lottery is lucky for me; I have not checked yet. I would be delighted if I could get an answer, particularly in relation to the timeline for supports following the flooding.

We are going to be dealing with more and more of these types of incidents so we will need off-the-shelf solutions. Like a lot of Members, I have been contacted by a number of farmers about the fodder transport scheme. I accept that when the Department puts together a scheme there always will be issues. Some people are giving out about the 75 km limit. They are saying they could get fodder once they buy it from someone who is 75 km away at a weighbridge and so on. I accept that it is a transport scheme but there are specific issues for certain people. The requirement for the involvement of a cooperative, like Lakeland Dairies for example, is causing difficulties. Farmers contacted some of the cooperatives but they said they were only dealing with farmers who were already clients or who had a relationship with them over the previous six months. We need to make sure people do not fall through the cracks and miss out on these particular supports.

Across the board everyone is talking about ensuring that we have sustainable farming. We know the way rural Ireland is set up at this point and while not everybody who lives in rural Ireland is a farmer, farming is a significant player in the local economy and community. We have to ensure that farming can be sustainable. We all know the importance of making sure we have a guaranteed food supply.

The idea of CAP across Europe was to have a food supply that was up to a particular specification and of a particular quality. We have seen issues in the past while partly because of an urbanised voter base across Europe. We need to do a serious amount of work with whatever has been lost previously in making sure the nitrates derogation is maintained. We need to have a real look at the supports that are needed across the board and what we can do to facilitate them. We need to have that conversation with farmers around maintaining sustainable family farms. We need a family farm system that works for us in respect of providing food into the future but that also works for them so they can get a living out of it. In dealing with the issues we face due to climate change, we need to put in place those supports for farming. We know farmers went wholesale into dairy on the basis of incentives given by Teagasc, the Department and others. We need to provide the supports and incentives that are necessary for maintaining sustainable and renewable farming.

Deputy Carol Nolan

I am sure the Minister is aware of the correspondence we all received yesterday from the Association of Farm and Forestry Contractors in Ireland, FCI. It outlined that the knock-on impact of the recent weather is that less than one third of the normal spring work has been completed. Against this background, the FCI is requesting that the Minister postpone the planned introduction of the next round of carbon tax increase on agricultural diesel until 1 October, when there will be some cash flow returned to the sector. The FCI also notes that cash flow restrictions will also impact on the fuel suppliers to the agricultural contractor sector. The concern among FCI members is that the credit terms to the sector will now be reduced. We can see from this and from other engagements with organisations like the IFA, the ICMSA and others that the tillage sector in particular is going through a nightmare of a time and needs urgent assistance. I welcome indications that supports will be rolled out, but this really requires a cross-departmental approach in line with what the FCI has called for, which I hope will be considered. There is no time to wait. Action from Government must be swift and it must be of sufficient scale that we do not allow our farmers or farm contractors to go under as they struggle to remain viable.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae

It has been an horrendous time since the end of September up until last week, where cattle were housed and the tillage men were completely delayed and held up. I am certainly not coming into this House to attack the Minister, but there is one thing I would reinforce and ask him to do. We want to work with him. We should all be trying our best for the farmers of Ireland. I have one genuine suggestion for the Minister which I implore him to take on board. It is not his fault but it is a thing for him to do as Minister. We hear over and over that payments were delayed because of a glitch in the system. The payment could be as simple as a TAMS grant or an ACRES or BISS payment. It could be any one of a variety of schemes. The farmers are being told there is a glitch in the system and their money is held up. Farming works on a tight budget and a tight margin. We need the money coming in so that people can pay it out. Could we ensure that farmers could be guaranteed that if their applications are in, it will not be the Department's fault? In other words, people will get payments on a timely basis and they can be sure of that and rely on it. Being blunt about it, we have a terribly bad reputation in the Department of agriculture for delaying payments. All I ask is that it would be sorted out. The way things are thought up, for example, the fodder scheme, while it is very welcome, in the manner that it has been devised it certainly is not user-friendly. I know plenty of people who could do with it but they have not applied for it. The Minister might look at the statistics and say it is not really needed at all but that is wrong. It is, but people will not apply for it. The very people who are applying for it are owed money by the Department of agriculture already. That is what I am saying about schemes like that. We need to streamline and be more efficient about our duties and pay people on time, every time.

On the red tape and bureaucracy that exists, I know there has to be good governance and oversight but, for God's sake, there is such a thing as taking a thing to the fair and farmers at the moment feel as though they are being taken to the fair and being blackguarded. They are trying to put up with what the Green Party is making the Government do and everything else, and I will not even start on that.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

I have been a farmer all my life and I understand very well what farmers are going through and have gone through since 16 June last, since it started raining first. This €100 per hectare is €40 per acre for grain. God almighty, €40 an acre would not bring home one bag of messages. Farmers are being blamed for everything. Farmers are providing food, and if we do not produce it, others will and we will be importing it. Farmers in Ireland produce sustainable food, milk and beef from green grass.

It is sad to see Deputies in the Chamber blaming the farmers for the weather. God almighty, we have only to look at history. In the 1740s we had two years of incessant rain where a third of our population died because they starved and many of our animals died at that time as well. Then there were years like 1847, 1883 and 1886, and there were fewer diesel engines then. There were no diesel engines in the 1740s. I know the Green Party is making the Government do this but getting us to pay carbon tax will not settle the weather.

I am asking the Government to pay all the outstanding payments to the farmers and give them €100 of a subsidy or voucher towards buying grain feed. That would be something to do for them.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

In ainm Dé, buíochas le Dia, the weather, tá an aimsir tirim inniu. We have had good weather for the past week and it is so badly needed, praise the Lord, because we cannot do anything without God, in my opinion. The weather helps everything. I just spoke to my neighbour, Diarmuid McGrath, and he is setting the potatoes today. We will have potatoes for Christmas dinner. We will not be eating lettuce or something like that. I plead with the Minister to cut out the red tape and cut out the baggage. Farmers are being strangled.

I support what Deputy Nolan said about the farm contractors. The FCI is an organisation which I helped found. They need a break. Stop removing the benefit they were given on the excise duty and stop the carbon tax. It is madness. Farmers are under severe pressure and it is likewise with agri-contractors. Fair play is fine play with me. There are State and semi-State bodies like An Taisce and the EPA that are blackguarding farmers, denigrating them and misleading them with untruthful reports and biased reports. They claim to let out the county councils where they are belching sewage into rivers and streams throughout the country. They gave a good, green map of Tipperary, but it was a totally untrue, fake, false report from the EPA again. I want to call it out here. It is an arm of Government, and it is down on the farmers like a ton of bricks, but no farmer wants to be polluting. If they do, they should be dealt with severely. This is fake, and there is demonising of farmers by the left wing in the House, by the media and by all and sundry. In the past three recessions, I remember the farmers took us out of them by the scruff of the neck. The farmers spent locally the money they got from the Department and everybody else. I ask the Minister to please try to ensure they get their payments. If they are held up for any kind of reason at all, it is totally unfair. The schemes that have been devised are so bureaucratic and so difficult. Please call off the dogs of the EPA. No disrespect to anyone working there but the reports are false and fake. They are discrimination and they are downright untrue.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am not sure those comments are warranted, Deputy.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

They are.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Perhaps you could refrain from referring to dogs.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I mean dogs metaphorically.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I know that.

Deputy Michael Collins

Agriculture is a bit like fisheries in that it has been thrown to the dogs by previous governments and by this Government in particular. I spent several hours canvassing in Macroom mart last Saturday. I met many farmers who are furious about how the Government has acted. They are absolutely livid. When Deputy Tóibín spoke about a Dublin-oriented Government, they were nodding in disbelief across the House, but the bottom line is that they are not delivering for rural people. I have great respect for Deputy Murnane O'Connor who is probably one of the finest TDs on the Government side but she said she was delighted to see the Taoiseach visiting her constituency. I would be mortified to have him visiting my constituency. The Minister for agriculture and the Taoiseach's two predecessors - Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar - have visited my constituency of Cork South-West. They nearly wore a track down to Ballyroe, probably creating potholes. That is the only good they did for the constituency. They did not even fill the bloody potholes, or maybe the council filled them when they were due to visit. They did nothing for the people of Ballyroe and Timoleague in west Cork, who have the best quality grounds down there and showed the country that changes could be made in regard to nitrates, and got no thanks for it.

The IFA and the ICSA keep pushing but they are pushing up against a dead rock. The dairy farmers, suckler farmers and tillage farmers are all severely suffering. Carbon tax has been foisted on them with no thanks, no sympathy and no understanding of the crisis they are in. There was little or nothing done in the recent crisis with the bad weather. A compensation package was put in place but it was a difficult package for most ordinary hard-working farmers to obtain. That put more difficulties on people. There are payments. Previous speakers, including Michael Healy-Rae, Danny Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath, have referred to the payments that farmers desperately need. There is very little between getting a payment and not getting it. It is not happening for them. I ask the Minister to sit up and wake up. It is pointless visiting constituencies. He visited Union Hall and Keelbeg Pier and nothing happened. Two taoisigh also visited and nothing ever happened.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I thank the Deputy. I gave him more time due to the interruption. I move on to Deputy Cathal Crowe, who has a 30-minute slot. He is the only person from his group here at the moment.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

I will speak for seven minutes. If someone sneaks up behind me, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle can alert me and I will stop talking.

I share many of the concerns that other Deputies have articulated today. I farm. I have 26 sucklers, short-horn Herefords and around me are farmers. My father and older members of my family recall a time when our village had 25 or 30 farmers. It is now down to five or six farmers, only two of whom are full-time farmers. Most of them have gone into part-time farming. They work in jobs in Shannon, in factories, or they are teachers. They slot farming in when they are able to. It is a concern. It concerns me more when I tune into the international news at night. While we are looking at months of wet weather, other parts of world are scorched and are unable to produce agricultural produce. The global output of food is going to become rather imbalanced as the years go by.

My family went on an early summer holiday this year, believing we could be in a general election in the summer. We found ourselves in a part of Gran Canaria that has had no rain for many months. They actually put canvas tarpaulins over some of their produce to protect it from the sun. At a time when people are constructing growing tunnels, they are trying to cover their produce in the months of March and April - before we even get into the summer - to protect it from the heavy sunshine. In terms of agricultural produce, we have to have our own outputs in Ireland but we need to have a more global look, and a look within the European bloc of countries as well, as to how much we can produce. Bad and all as our weather can be, this small island nation is a great country for producing grass and grass-reared animals that can end up in the beef line and for producing finished dairy products. We need to talk ourselves up in Europe in terms of our capacity to produce these products.

I would love to see the Minister push for the possibility of protected geographical indication, PGI, status for Irish grass-produced beef and Irish dairy products. Iberian ham has this status. The blaa bread roll in Waterford has it. Different sausages in Italy have it. These are geographically intrinsic products from certain parts of Europe that have protected status. At a time when we increasingly see animals being housed indoors, fed on concentrate, the fact is that most Irish beef and most Irish dairy cows are reared on grass for most of the year. They are brought indoors for three, three and a half or four months. During that time, they are fed mostly silage or hay. In this country, we are not overly reliant on concentrates or on artificially building up the animal. It is very much a grass-based economy. We need to look for PGI status for the Irish animal so that we are not lumped in with other European countries in how they produce terminal beef and how they produce dairy products. We need to speak up for the fact that as an island nation, we have largely a grass-reared population of cattle. It would be wonderful for the Minister, with his counterparts in Europe, to look for PGI status for Irish cattle.

I would like to see fodder purchased by farmers prior to 31 March retrospectively included in the fodder transport scheme that was mentioned earlier. The dry weather of the past five or six days has given hope to farmers. Cattle are finally out of sheds. Farmers who went down to a neighbour to beg or borrow some silage and fodder bales now find that they are able to open gates and let the stock out into the fields. However, that does not negate the fact that in February and March these farmers were put to the pin of their collar. It would be great to have a retrospective angle to that.

There has been a whole national debate, some of it distorted, about rewetting. It has largely been put to bed but there is now merit to looking, as a nation, at having a scheme for draining lands, or certainly the boundaries of lands. The best meadows on my farm are now pushing up rushes. I had to go out and top them at the weekend. When it gets to late July and I attempt to make some silage, it will be a very poor-quality bale. I have gone into organics and so have many of my neighbours. We cannot fertilise this land. We are prohibited from draining it to any great extent but surely a linear drain around the boundary should be something that all farmers are once again encouraged to do. I am not talking about putting Wavin pipes the whole way down and percolation pipes the whole way through a field, but surely the linear drainage of a field should be promoted. Indeed, there should be a grant scheme at this stage to encourage farmers to do that.

I want to raise an issue that is coming up increasingly in my constituency office. When a farmer has passed away and the will goes to probate, the farmer who is succeeding him or her has to wait many months. In the mid-west region, it is taking seven months for probate to pass through. During that period, they are locked out from all of the EU farm grants and payments they should be in receipt of. Yes, there is an indemnity form that they can fill in later in the process, and they will probably get the money after four to six months. When the will is not read immediately, probate does not get lodged immediately. This means it can take 18 months from the date of death for payments to reach a farmer's bank account. It is devastating. In no other enterprise would you hear about the successor to the business having to wait 18 months for a brown penny or shilling to reach their bank account. In the case of the local drapery store, Spar shop, pub, restaurant or hotel, when someone dies and passes the business on to the next person, there would be a capital fund or the working account of that business would be available to that person. That is not the case in farming. The money gets locked in and for that 18-month period they cannot buy stock and they cannot invest in TAMS. As the various grants they are approved for require initial investment before they get a reimbursement, they cannot even do that. There has to be a better way. When someone dies and the will is straightforward, EU payments from the Department should be transferred over to the beneficiary of the will immediately so that people do not get locked into some protracted probate process. I do not believe this exists for any other enterprise, so why should it exist in farming? It does not make sense to me.

The issue of horse welfare is increasingly becoming a problem in County Clare. Certain people believe they have a God-given cultural right to own horses because they have a family history in horses. Let me remind the Minister that most Irish families did not have a motor car until the 1950s or 1960s. Every single Irish family has a history of horses. When I look back on our own family album, I see that there was always a horse and a cart at the back of the family homestead. Everyone has a cultural family history of horses but it does not entitle everyone in 2024 to have a horse. In County Clare at the moment, people in houses and non-houses are keeping horses tethered onto poles in industrial estates, tied onto caravans or hemmed in by site fencing. It is wrong. If someone is going to own a horse on this island, they had better have land they own, they had better lease land, or they had better be paying for livery. Why do we tolerate it that people have horses out the back or illegally grazing the place next door? This problem is the bane of local authorities like Clare County Council and many more across the country. Horse law is quite strict, and animal welfare is quite strict, but the enforcement is not. The laws in this area need to be better enforced. There needs to be better resourcing of enforcement. We need to pull apart from the idea or line of defence that people have a cultural entitlement to own a horse. Nobody has a cultural entitlement to own an animal and have it tethered cruelly around the neck with wire or rope - tethered to a post day in, day out - with its ribcage showing.

No one has that right and we need to grab that by the scruff of its neck.

The green cert programme is a passage into farming for many young farmers. I completed my green cert about seven years ago in Pallaskenry and it was a great foundation training in farming. People undertake the programme for two reasons, as the Minister knows well. First, it is to acquire skills they can use in their farming life, but there are also taxation benefits from it, such as stamp duty relief for young trained farmers. Teagasc does an excellent job in education and there is a wonderful team, but we are increasingly seeing that the grading and its verification by QQI is taking some time, and sometimes the grade verification does not come through in time to enable young trained farmers to avail of the taxation reliefs around it. There needs to be a prioritisation. I raised this with the Taoiseach just a few weeks ago, when he was Minister for higher education. There needs to be some element of prioritisation for people nearing their 35th birthday, when they will lose out on funding.

On the delays in ACRES payments, what capacity will the Department have for next spring? I know there will not be new entrants per se and it will be mostly a rollover of everyone again, given they are locked into a multiannual scheme. Nevertheless, can we get some reassurances, when the Minister makes his concluding statement, that there will be capacity in the Department to process these payments in a timely way? They are so important. In County Clare, where 85% of our farming enterprise is based on the suckler beef model, farmers are dependent on these grants and make very little at the marts when they try to sell terminal animals.

I could go on, but if the Minister might respond to some of my points when he is making his concluding statement, I would be very grateful.

Deputy John McGuinness

The farmers I come across in my constituency are dealing with serious issues of finance on their farms and need all the support they can get. They are facing all sorts of challenges, some relating to climate change and others relating to the sheer administration of their enterprise. The weather has not helped and is not helping them, and while it is quite different now and it is good to see them all out in the fields again, they suffered losses. I expressed concern in the past two weeks about the mental health issues facing farmers. Last night, I experienced one such family, where I had to go to talk to the farmer concerned, and to say he was suicidal is not overstating it. He was in really poor shape. The Department needs to understand the types of pressures farmers are under and ease up on some of the investigations that are ongoing. I am not saying we should abandon them and I know the Department has a job to do, but there is enough pressure on farmers, particularly farm families, without the additional burden of an ongoing investigation. Whatever the investigation will throw up or whatever the results will be, they will be the same tomorrow or the day after that. I appeal to the Minister, therefore, to say to his officials that while they have a job to do, they should be careful and conscious of the fact all these financial farming issues have caused serious difficulties for farm families and that they need a break.

I have heard a lot of debate condemning farmers and that is simply wrong. They are being vilified for one reason or another, and the more often people stand up in this House and express their support for rural Ireland and farmers throughout the country, the better. They are the backbone of this country and in terms of exports, they are doing a fantastic job. We need to recognise that as good as the stuff they produce is, they in turn are the protectors of the environment on each and every farm. They need support, and I ask the Minister to ensure they will get as much financial support as they can, that they will get support for their health and well-being and that we will be seen to be there to assist them rather than hinder them. I think the Minister's officials will understand the issues as he might explain them to them.

Deputy Michael McNamara

I am sharing time. I find myself, as is often if not always the case, in agreement with what Deputy McGuinness said but I acknowledge that farm inspections, for example, have been eased in the circumstances, which has come as some small relief to farmers given the pressure they were under.

In the brief time available, I will discuss the fodder transport scheme. While it is well intentioned, I simply do not understand the 75 km rule, whereby the fodder has to be transported for at least that distance. I understand the Minister does not want to give a blanket sum whereby people will get the same sum whether they are transporting fodder from 1 mile down the road or for 100 miles. State money has to be properly spent and safeguards have to be in place. The 75 km restriction, however, seems to be overly bureaucratic, and if I were to be cynical, I would say it is designed to make sure the majority of people cannot apply, although I genuinely do not think it was intended as a cynical measure. In any event, I think we are moving from this year's fodder crisis to looking at next year's one and to making sure there will not be a fodder crisis next year.

Fodder, and the cost of making it, is probably going to be more expensive than it has ever been. While fertiliser prices have come back a bit, labour costs continue to increase and, above all, fuel costs are going to continue to increase, and that is what I wish to address. If there is any way the increase in carbon tax could be postponed until October, even if just for contractors given how important they are for the making of fodder, hay, silage and straw but also for ploughing and sowing, a lot of which is now done by contractors, or if a refund could be made available to contractors, that should be done. I am told the increase of 2 cent per litre is going to cost the sector €10 million over the summer, and that €10 million will be transferred, inevitably, onto customers and farmers. If the money that was set aside, therefore, which I do not think will be drawn down because of the 75 km limit, which in a bizarre way increases the incentive to transport it over longer distances and, therefore, would be contrary to the Government's stated policy on our carbon footprint and so on, could be used to either postpone or refund the sum by which carbon tax is envisaged to be increased, that would be a very welcome measure.

Deputy Marian Harkin

Today we are discussing weather-related supports for farmers. Many farmers in the north west are paying a very heavy price, both in income lost and, indeed, in the context of their own well-being and mental health, as they grapple to keep going with the poor weather that has dogged the west and the north west since August of last year. It is not just about keeping going; it is about seeing a viable future for their farm with the weather-related challenges alongside all the other challenges they face. While it is not directly linked to bad weather, I want to mention the increasing level of bureaucracy farmers have to manage, which is putting a severe strain on their workload and their ability to run a viable enterprise.

Indeed, a recent survey carried out by the European Commission, covering the entire Union and receiving 27,000 replies from farmers, showed the increasing burden of red tape, or green tape, as I call it. This extra work stems from the administrative burden and complexity of the new CAP rules as well as the rules and regulations of all the other schemes in which farmers are involved. Farmers said that they had to report the same piece of information several times. The Commission itself estimated that many farmers spent six days per year dealing with the burden of bureaucracy. The situation is not straightforward and such issues can be complex, but for as long as I can remember, the European Commission has spoken about simplifying the various administrative procedures. Now that the Commission is re-examining the matter, I ask the Minister to make every effort to ensure that, this time, there is a reduction in the bureaucratic burden.

I will return to the issue of weather-related supports. Coming from Donegal, the Minister will be aware that many farmers in the west and north west are running short of fodder. The Minister has put a transport subsidy in place, but from what I am hearing in Sligo, Leitrim, south Donegal and north Roscommon – perhaps the Minister’s area of Donegal is different – the subsidy will be of little benefit to farmers because there are still some bales available and the distance that farmers have to travel to access them is generally not greater than 70 km. The sun is shining now, but the ground is saturated and there has been poor grass growth. Spreading fertiliser has been difficult, if not impossible, in recent weeks, so there will be a shortage of grass for the next two to three weeks at least and the yield from the first cut of silage will definitely be down. While there are some bales available, cost is a major issue. It is hearsay, but I have heard reports of bales going for up to €50 each in parts of Connemara.

Many farmers are telling me that they are seeking some kind of one-off subsidy on a tonne of meal. The Minister and I know that meal is what animals want when there is a shortage of grass. It is far more beneficial to them than bales of hay. However, a small farmer buying meal right now has to pay approximately €450 per tonne. If there was a one-off subsidy covering the first 5 tonnes of meal or even the first 2 tonnes, it would make an immediate financial difference to farmers, in particular hill and suckler farmers. I ask the Minister to consider this suggestion. The cost of such a scheme would not be substantial, but it would deliver a benefit to many farmers who will not benefit from the scheme that the Minister announced.

My colleague, Deputy McNamara, mentioned farm and forestry contractors. They have been badly hit by the bad weather. Less than one third of their normal spring work has been completed and their turnovers and cash flows have been substantially reduced, which means that many of these family-based rural businesses are in trouble. Forget about their inability to complete work last autumn due to poor weather - they cannot even work in April of this year, and no work in April means no cash in May to pay bills. As the Minister knows, many agri-contractors have to wait for farmers to get their money before they themselves get paid. In these exceptional circumstances, the contractors are asking the Minister to defer the planned introduction of the next round of carbon tax increases on agricultural diesel until 1 October, by which point they hope some cash flow will have returned to their businesses.

In the little bit of extra time available to me, I wish to mention two points, the first of which has to do with PGI status for boxty. I set up the meeting in 2014 to start that process. That was ten years ago, yet the process is still ongoing. Every few months, I submit a written or oral question – I have one in for tomorrow morning – on what is happening with PGI status for boxty. I have got the same response year after year, namely, that the process is ongoing. Will the Minister examine what is happening and see whether he can expedite matters? That it has taken this long is ridiculous. Either we can do it or we cannot, but we should not just be waiting around. I also want the Minister to use his best influence to ensure Exchequer funding for the ash dieback scheme.

Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne

I welcome the opportunity to speak up for farmers in County Clare. I wish to show the House a document that we recently received from the IFA in Clare, entitled “Enough is Enough”. Farmers have felt completely disregarded by the Government in terms of not receiving enough support and respect for the work they do, what that work provides to their local communities and the hardships they have faced in recent years. They feel that their concerns have not been heeded by the Government and that there needs to be a shakeup of agricultural policy at national and European levels.

I will put some perspective on this. Agriculture in Clare contributes more than €1 billion to the local economy. There are 12,000 people directly and indirectly employed in agriculture. Over 20% of the working population in Clare is involved in agri-related jobs. There are some 6,297 family farms in Clare, with the average age of a farmer being 59 owing to the fact that major struggles have been encountered in trying to attract younger farmers.

The Department made a shambles of the ACRES payments. The significant delays put considerable financial pressure on farmers, who ultimately paid the price for them and the Department’s inadequacies. The IFA made the point that, if the shoe were on the other foot and farmers were even a day late applying for a scheme, they would be excluded automatically, with no room or flexibility for them.

Clare IFA wants the Government to acknowledge the income challenges facing farmers arising from the significant increase in the cost of doing business, including regulatory costs, and the cuts in basic income supports for farmers, let alone the inclement weather that has delayed the planting of crops and led to crop harvest failures, higher bedding, feeding and housing costs for those with farm animals, and tougher farming conditions more generally. Clare IFA wants a commitment from the Government that it will not introduce further regulations on farmers or any measures that would increase farmers’ costs without full negotiation and agreement with the IFA and stand-alone funding, separate to the CAP, to support farmers in undertaking climate and biodiversity measures.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Before the Minister replies, I will allow Deputy Martin Kenny to contribute for three minutes.

Deputy Martin Kenny

I apologise for missing my earlier speaking slot, but I was at a committee meeting.

Everyone recognises the challenging weather we have had, not just this spring, but over the past eight or nine months of rain, particularly in our part of the world in the north west. I was on a farmyard with a farmer the other evening in Cloone, County Leitrim and he had just four bales of silage left, with the slatted house overflowing with cattle. He said that, even though the sun was shining, they would go to their knees if he let them out into the field because it was so wet. This is the case for many farmers in areas where there is marginal or poorer land with poor drainage. They feel like they need some assistance in this regard. Providing something to help with the transportation of fodder was mentioned, but what farmers really need is a subsidy to help them to buy some grain and meal. If something like that could be put in place, it would be the quickest and most effective way of resolving the problem. We hope that the weather remains good. If we get another five or six weeks of decent weather, we will be out of this situation. Everyone recognises that.

Most crops would usually be planted by this time of year. While that is not much of an issue in my constituency, the impact on the tillage sector will certainly affect us. If the tillage farmer does not plant grain and get feed in, we will not have feed for our cattle next winter. This is a problem across the country. We need to recognise that if we do not intervene early, the situation coming down the road will get worse.

The general problems in the farming sector date back a long time. Farmers are despondent and disappointed. They find applying for and dealing with many of these schemes difficult. I will cite an example.

TAMS 3 has been up and running for the past 12 months, as the Minister will be aware. Under the health and safety measure relating to it, farmers can buy mobile handling equipment such as mobile crushes or pennings. Farmers purchase the equipment before they get a percentage reimbursement from the Department. In order to qualify for the scheme, they must complete a health and safety course which they have to pay for themselves. That is one of the issues. When they make their claim, they have to show the invoice for the equipment marked paid, a certificate of completion for the health and safety course, a tax clearance certificate and, finally, a photograph of the equipment purchased. The Department currently does not have the ability to accept digital photographs. As a result, it cannot process claims from farmers. That is an example of the issues that arise. If regulations and conditions are to be put in place in order for farmers to draw down grants, we need to make sure that the Department has its side of the fence worked out as well and that it is able to deal with applications.

The issue with agriculture is, as we are all aware, that it is always trying to play catch-up. Certainly, the inclement weather we have had for the past number of months has not helped. However, there is so much that could be done by the Department to make it easier for farmers to comply with grants for farmers to work and they want to do this it. They want to do this. They want to do a better job if they can but they need the support of a Minister for agriculture who is on their side.

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Deputy Charlie McConalogue)

I thank all of the Members for their extensive contributions and for agreeing, on a cross-party basis, to allocate three hours for a debate on a very important topic to ensure that all the issues involved got a good airing. Many different issues were raised over the course of the three hours. One that was raised by a number of speakers is that of transport subsidy scheme we have introduced in order to help support the transport of fodder to areas where it might be scarce from areas where there would be availability in cases where it is over 75 km. Indeed, the issue as to why 75 km was selected was raised by a number of Deputies. It is important to recognise the position we are in and the fact that, thankfully, there has been sufficient fodder available in the country. That was a really important starting point that we found ourselves operating from, particularly in view of the exceptionally and unprecedentedly long winter that lasted from September up to now. Farmers did a great deal of hard work last year in terms of making sure that fodder stocks were strong. They were supported in this by the fodder scheme that the Government put in place to pay to €1,000 each to farmers to make sure that the latter was the case and to mitigate the expensive fertiliser prices resulting from the illegal invasion of Ukraine. That scheme was important. Going forward, it is the one thing to make sure that we all do as well and that every farm prepares in order to ensure that there is enough of a buffer in terms of stock because, as many of the Deputies said, what has happened is something that has become more frequent in recent years. We need to make sure we prepare for it in the future.

Given the situation and the fact that there are some parts of the country where fodder was in short supply, we moved two or three weeks ago to put in place the fodder transport subsidy scheme. The objective here is to ensure that we are covering the biggest proportion of the cost of transporting fodder into areas where it is not available locally. The idea is that no farmer will have to go any further our covering the cost of bringing it in means that it will at least be available in the co-op yards in each locality, thereby mitigating the cost of getting on site. The assessment was that 75 km was a reasonable distance within which to cover the cost, particularly if someone had to go further than that. As has been the case in the vast majority of instances, farmers' first port of call has been their local network - their farming neighbours who have stepped in to support them and to sell fodder to them in the cases where there are shortages. That has continued to be the preference. We did not want to put in place a scheme that would distort the position and mean that farmers would not continue to try to source fodder locally in instances where it is available. The objective has been to make sure that where it is not available, we get it and cover the cost of getting into an area without this adding to the cost burden that is on farmers as a result of the current lack of availability.

Many Deputies referred to the structure of the new tillage scheme. Given the pressure we are under, in particular with the tillage sector, the Government felt it important to ensure that we would give support to the sector to make sure that farmers have enhanced confidence to go ahead and plant whenever there is a window to allow them to do so. Thankfully, we have seen a planting window open up in recent days. The commitment in this regard is to ensure that we are paying the grant in respect of all field-grown crops - tillage and field-grown vegetables, including potatoes - that are planted for harvest 2024 in a straightforward manner at €100 per hectare. This will by no means mitigate all of the risk involved in a late planting in the context of the potential impact on yield, but it was a strong commitment on the part of the Government to support the sector to the tune of an expected payment requirement of approximately €30 million. That is something on which I will have to work.

As Minister, I have given a commitment to the sector. Obviously, as has been made clear by the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for public expenditure, there will be no mini-budgets over the course of this year. I will have to work hard within my Department to identify the funding source for that or, indeed, as the year goes on, to make sure that we can deliver. I have given a clear commitment that we will do so. As a Government, it has been our form to make sure that when sectors have been under pressure in the past, we delivered. Whether it was the pig sector, the horticulture sector on a couple of occasions in two different years, or the tillage sector last autumn when we delivered €1,000 per hectare for unharvested crops or a €50 per hectare standard payment, the Government has worked to support different sectors when they are under pressure. Last year and this year, we have delivered €1,000 per family farm to support the making of fodder. Thankfully, this has helped to ensure that we had enough fodder to allow us to deal with the impact of the unprecedented weather experienced in recent months. Going forward into both he harvest and the planting season for 2024, we are giving a commitment to tillage farmers that we will make the payment and secure the funding over the course of this year to make sure we can deliver that payment. Our goal is to give them additional heart and confidence in what has been an unprecedentedly difficult year. In the time ahead, we also want to make sure that our tillage sector will grow into the future. We want the sector to reach 400,000 ha by the end of this decade. There was some slippage, both last year and into this year, in terms of the amount of land under tillage. After having made progress through the tillage incentive scheme that we ran for two years, the different things that hare happening are putting pressure on the area under tillage. We want to now see that area begin to grow again. In the past few days, I received the report of the tillage food vision group I established. The group brings farm representatives together with all stakeholders to advise me and the Government on how, from a policy perspective, we can work to support the sector to grow. In the immediate term, it is about making sure that people put seeds in the soil and deliver a harvest this year despite what have been very difficult circumstances for farmers.

Issues relating to payments and the importance of prompt payments were raised by all contributors. Certainly, that is something the Government absolutely agrees on. We are at the top of the league among European Union member states in the context of delivering payments early or on time. That is something that we want to continue to excel at. Last year was the first year of a new CAP. There were particular challenges, so we set out a payment schedule at the start of the year that we worked really hard to deliver on. The payment schedule meant that some payment dates set at the start of the year were between one and four weeks later than they would have been in previous years. The objective being to make sure that everybody within the Department could work to make sure that we were able to pay people on the dates that we set, and we did. A high ninety per cent of payments were paid across all of those scheme on the dates that we said that they would, and that was really important. This year, we will revert to all of the traditional dates. We are committed to making sure that we pay very high percentages on those dates this year.

The one scheme which has been a challenge is ACRES. In response to that, I moved to make interim payments to ensure that every farmer who took part in ACRES has received if not their upfront payment, then either a €4,000 or a €5,000 interim payment. The only exception is any farm in respect of which probate is ongoing. This is because someone has to be able to identify who should receive the payment in order for it to be made. Deputy Cathal Crowe referred to the importance of payments and ACRES operating smoothly this coming year. We are all working hard to ensure that this will be the case.

Across the sector over the course of this year we will closely monitor how it is doing and be in a position to support it as necessary, especially rolling out and continuing with the very strong payments we have in place. There is the €200 per suckler cow commitment this Government has delivered on. Also, this year we will for the first time see a doubling of the previous level of payment for a sheep. As recently as 20 months ago it was €10 per ewe and this year €20 per ewe will be available to all in the sheep sector as an important support to that sector. We will continue to roll out the new TAMS where we have 44 additional items that are available for either 40% or 60% grant aid with the new tranche 4 opening in the past few days. We are ensuring those who need to get on with their work can get priority status so they get the approval they need to move on with that as well.

I am always available to attend the House and am working closely with the Ministers of State, Deputy Heydon and Senator Hackett. This is a massively important sector of our national economy as well as the backbone of our rural economy. I recognise the respect Members give to the sector, but also the particular pressures farm families have been under in recent weeks, by allocating three hours to this issue in the Dáil. We are available at any stage to come in and discuss the work we are doing on behalf of the sector and on behalf of farmers nationally, should the Dáil request it.