Trade Agreements
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South

I have been very clear in my role since 23 January last year on every given occasion. Four days after I became the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, I was in Brussels at my first Agri-Fish Council, and I put on the record my concerns and opposition to the Mercosur trade deal. I have worked very closely with individual like-minded countries to build a coalition and try to get a blocking minority. I have also worked to get the safeguards improved so that if the blocking minority failed, the safeguards would better protect the very farmers the Deputy is speaking about. The change in the safeguards from 10% to 5% will be very significant if this deal comes in. Nonetheless, our view was very clear: that is not enough for us and we oppose the deal.
I would challenge the Deputy’s catastrophisation of the issues. We have seen record year-on-year growth in the value of our agrifood exports. I have no doubt that when the CSO figures for 2025 come out in the very near future, they will again show another year of record growth to over €21 billion in the value of the agrifood exports that our farmers produce, compared to €8 billion or €9 billion a little over ten years ago.
Teagasc income surveys last year for every sector proved very significant percentage increases for each sector as well, and those percentage increases are income going into our family farms on the ground all across rural Ireland.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29