Fuel Supports to the Agricultural Sector: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-21 ============================================================ Paraic Brady (FG), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister back to the House. When we mention agriculture, this year so far we have seen so many pitfalls, such as the TB programme, fuel protests, Mercosur challenges, CAP coming in and on top of all that we have the bluetongue vaccine to roll out throughout the whole country, which I hope we do not lose sight of. The backbone of this country is farming and we cannot forget that when we see the amount of money that is made from our exports on an annual basis. These are the people who get up early in the morning and go to work. As one of our colleagues in the Lower House said, they are the people with the black hands. I might not have black hands but they are torn because I was fencing this morning trying to keep in sheep from the neighbour. That is one thing we do not really expect but it has to be done. We have seen the protests on the streets last week and the anger and frustration of hauliers, farmers and contractors. We have listened to them and I welcome the support scheme that the Minister and his colleagues implemented. We need clarification on a few parts of the scheme going forward. A question that is frequently asked is, will an agricontractor that carries out land reclamation, for example hedge cutting, drainage or roads through farm lands, be entitled to the rebate scheme? If a farmer purchased gas-marked oil in February 2025 for this season, will this amount to be taken into account for the rebate scheme for the year going forward? If a farmer or contractor has a tax clearance certificate and can prove that he bought a certain amount of gas-marked oil in 2025, will he be able to get a full rebate on the amount he bought in 2025 or will there be a cap on the amount of rebate that he will receive? There are huge contractors and then there are smaller contractors. Will there be a cap on the fuel that was bought? Simplification is a word we use around this House when it comes to farming and farmers. I hope this scheme will be simplified so that there will be no pitfalls in it for the farmers. If a person has receipts for diesel, has a tax clearance certificate from the Revenue Commissioners and can prove that a certain amount of diesel was bought, then that person should be entitled to claim back that same amount of diesel for 2026. That is where the scheme should start and finish. Why can the Government not cap fuel prices? That question has been thrown at us all over . Why do we not cap it? Has this Government profited from the hike in fuel prices? Some people out there, and some in the Opposition, claim that we have made multi-millions out of the price and profits. I would like to have that rectified in this House here today. We all know this is not only Ireland's challenge but a global challenge. Challenges, when put to farmers, always come out the other side. The war in Ukraine and the war in Iran certainly impacted on Ireland as a whole this year. Maybe it is time to think outside the box in regard to farming. Maybe it is time to look at generating our own energy supplies. Farmers can put more solar panels on all the sheds in the country to feed into the national grid and receive some money back from ESB Networks for supplying the energy. That is something we need to look at. I welcome all the moneys on offer to our farmers. As the Minister said, the VAT on petrol and white diesel was 23% but the VAT on green diesel up until now was 13.5%. Farmers are working at this time. The general consensus is that this will work and will ease the burden for the farming communities and contractors. Some clarity is needed around what defines a contractor. It is up to each farmer to fill in the paperwork and submit it. I hope the Department is ready to issue the money to the farmers and contractors. It is badly needed. We have seen the price of diesel at the moment. The weather is getting good. It is a late spring and the crops are being sown now, fertiliser is being spread. Everybody knows the cost of fertiliser is high at the moment. That is another issue. I hope the money will roll. That is important. The money needs to roll to the people who need it most. They are the people who get up in the morning. Some 99% of the people who were on the streets of Dublin, Galway, Cork and Limerick were hurting. I am glad to see that they are back to work. I hope this money is rolled out to them sooner rather than later and that the scheme will be simplified. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-21/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-21