Fuel Supports to the Agricultural Sector: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-21 ============================================================ Paul Daly (FF), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister and the opportunity to have this debate on fuel supports, specifically for the agricultural sector and based on recent events. The deal has been thrashed out. The previous speaker mentioned a number of the stakeholders who were in the room. I think every sector was well represented. That deal is done. It was not an easy deal to do, but I welcome it and I compliment everybody who was involved in what were very fractious and trying times on coming out with a deal that was acceptable to the vast majority. I will not take all of my speaking time because we will not rehash all of that. The deal is done. We know why it needed to be done. Depending on who you are talking to but also, as Senator Boyhan mentioned, on fluctuations in the oil market, it may not be enough. Every morning on "Morning Ireland" when it goes to the business news, we hear about the price of a barrel of oil fluctuating at an enormous rate, depending on what utterance has come out of the White House the night before. We are a long way from being out of the woods, to coin a phrase. While I know the Minister is working on a scheme and I will talk about that in a second, the first package was always to be reviewed. That message go lost along the way somewhere. A lot of people took the package as being a final package, but it was never going to be. The Minister was quite clear on that, as was anyone who was asked about it. It was a first offering and the situation was to be monitored, and if needs be, which was the case, the second package would come. We do not know if there will be a third package, but what contingencies are being put in place and what analysis is being done as to the need for further interventions? Regarding the current scheme, the Minister says he is working diligently and his officials are working to get it out. The money needs to be paid. The money need to get to the contractors and farmers' pockets ASAP. The cuckoo has arrived and that is when it kicks off on the farm. Now is the time of greatest expenditure. It is now that farmers need the money. I would be a little bit taken aback if, as the Minister referenced, we were still at a phase of deciding the definition of a contractor. I would not be enthused about how soon we will see the terms and conditions of the scheme, how soon people will be applying for the financial aid or how soon people can have that money in their pockets. I hope the Minister can reassure me on that in his final response. It is certainly not reassuring, from where I am standing, and I need the Minister to provide clarification. There was also a mention of EU state aid cover being necessary. Where are we on that? Has that been achieved yet? To broaden the debate somewhat, the Common Agricultural Policy was set up in 1962. Basically, it was a policy that delivered money to the agricultural sector. It was a social contract between the agricultural sector and society for the provision of traceable, safe and cheap food. With every CAP that has been negotiated since the original one, there has been money peeled away in the multi-annual financial framework. It is ongoing at the minute; there is a proposal for it to be reduced by 20%. We have gone further away from food production and security in CAP. If never before, this should be the wake-up call that we need to revisit food security and the production of good-quality, cheap food for our citizens. We have the mechanism to do it in the CAP. We cannot be running every time there is a scare. During the past four years, we have had Ukraine and now we have the situation in the Middle East. Fertiliser and fuel are probably the two ingredients that will affect the overall price of food on the table at the end of the day and it seems over and again that these crises and wars are affecting that. Why can we not build a strategy into CAP to get the money that should be ring-fenced for food production? Money has been leaked from CAP to migration, climate and defence. The biggest issue we have as a society and a generation of people is food security and it is way beyond time to commence the debate. Lack of food security is a bigger issue than any other security we have. That has been highlighted in recent weeks by how a war and the closure of one narrow strait of water can threaten the production and security of the food we need to live and eat. We have always been proud of having plenty of reserves to fall back on. That is not the situation any more and this has highlighted that. They are in negotiations at the moment. We need to stress that when negotiating the CAP budget in the multi-annual financial framework. There need to be insurance budgets - for want of a better phrase - built into the CAP for situations like this so that every time food production is affected, we do not have to run and protest; have meetings, marches and discussions; gather up a load of stakeholders into a room; thrash out a deal; watch what is going on in the rest of the world in the current geopolitical situation; see what is going to happen; and see whether we will have to do the same thing again in two weeks' time. We have the mechanism there; it is called CAP. We need to revert to what it was set up for, that is, securing food. That will include having insurance money in situ in every CAP to ensure we can support our contractors, farmers and hauliers. While this is just agriculture and it is the farmers who produce the food, it would not be on the shelves if it were not for the hauliers. Food production and the cost of food is being affected at every juncture by what has happened recently, and possibly will be again going forward. I plead that we use this is as a wake-up call to build insurances into the coming CAP and all future CAPs for situations like this. Money can be make available for climate actions, floodings, etc., but fuel crises, the lack of availability of fuel and fluctuating fuel costs need to be built in there also. I warmly welcome the scheme the Minister mentioned but I would like to see how soon the money can get to the fishers. I welcome that the fishers are included. Often, and I am as guilty of this as anyone else, we talk of agriculture and food and do not go as far as the marine. Especially by those who come from two midland counties as the Minister and I do, the fishers can often be forgotten. When we talk about our tractors and how much diesel they burn, we can only imagine what a trawler is burning and the extra expense on them. The Minister said he would talk to the banks about being lenient. I ask him to also talk to the fuel distributors and suppliers, who are in many cases now demanding payment on delivery. I know there is extra money involved and the 1,000 litres cost twice what they did. They will probably have to carry more credit but if the farmers do not have it, they do not have it. Some suppliers are saying they will not come out to fill a tank unless the money is there. The Minister needs to talk to them and maybe tell the banks to talk to them. If the banks supported them, they might be able to give the fuel to the farmers without demanding payment upfront. --- 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