Fuel Supports to the Agricultural Sector: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-21 ============================================================ Noel O'Donovan (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach The Minister is welcome to the Chamber. We are living in unprecedented times. I think that is not a cliché that can be overused enough at the moment. I respect that the Minister is living through a crisis that is directly affecting his Department and I want to compliment him on how he is handling the crisis, for the Minister's engagement with us as Oireachtas Members, and with the organisations that are deeply affected by the crisis we are living in. We had quite an honest debate here last Tuesday in the Chamber when we spoke about the fuel crisis and the protests. Many of us across the room spoke quite honestly and said that we needed to speak out as parliamentarians and that the Government needed to take lessons, learn lessons and act better. That is the debate we have inside in this Chamber. It is based on fact, based on emotions and based on reality. It is also important to put on record the level of support that has been provided in the recent package by the Government of €750 million. Some will say it is the biggest package in Europe, while some will say it is the second biggest. I think Malta is a little bit ahead of us. This is €137.87 to every citizen within this country that the Government has provided. That is welcome and badly needed because people are under pressure. As parliamentarians we know that people are under pressure. We feel their pressure and we do our very best to explain and communicate that pressure to the Government or from opposition. That is our role. I genuinely want to put on the record the Minister's work and the Government's work in putting that package in place. We continue to manage this crisis while we need to see potentially if we need to do more. Senator Daly raised a very important question. What I am hearing on the ground is that simplification is needed in agriculture for the various schemes that are currently in operation, not the support scheme that is currently put in place for this. Simplification is needed. Outside of the work for this support package, will the Minister consider carrying out a review within the Department of the various schemes and simplifying if at all possible? In recent times the Minister has asked the EU to simplify habitats and nature restoration law to make it more simplified for farmers and to communicate it better. That is a really welcome call and we need to do that within our own Departments as well. I recently brought a number of stakeholders together in west Cork including the Department's forestry section, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, Cork County Council and various organisations, to communicate with the farmers on a specific issue. To say there was divergence at the meeting would be an understatement. There was even divergence within the NPWS on how it should communicate with farmers. We need to do better. I have a couple of specific questions, one of which is on the carbon tax. I am strongly of the view that we should remove carbon tax on green diesel and agriculture because we do not have alternatives in that space. I welcome carbon tax in terms of its support for retrofitting and the fuel allowance but I believe we should remove it. I am asked by many of the farmers that I represent why there is no carbon tax paid on aviation fuel. I am not sure if the Minister has the answer. Maybe that is a question for the Minister for Transport, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. Why is there no carbon tax paid on aviation fuel? I would like an answer to that question. I also want to acknowledge the support scheme that was put in place for fishers. We are all aware in this House of the lack of support for the fishing community in recent years, if not decades. This time it is a credit to the Government that a scheme is going to be put in place to support fishermen with their increased fuel costs. That is welcome and I thank the Minister specifically for his engagement on that. Senator Manus Boyle asked me to raise the specific point that it is for the whole sector, both inshore and offshore. Inshore fishers are being protected here as well. As many of the inshore boats are small with petrol engines and do not qualify for the current supports, it is important they are included in the new scheme. There is important work ahead in agriculture. The CAP does not get mentioned in agriculture debates as much as I would like. It is going to be really important in the months ahead to ensure that we have a sustainable CAP, a CAP that actually works for the farmers of today. I thank the Minister for his work. It is clear that this funding must be released as soon as possible and that the process involved must be as simple as possible. --- 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