Fuel Supports to the Agricultural Sector: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-21 ============================================================ Sarah O'Reilly (AON), Agricultural Panel I thank the Minister for coming to the House today. I am deeply invested in this issue. I agree with the Sinn Féin Senators who said that what agricultural contractors want to see are reductions at the pump. I understand it when the Minister says that cannot happen but that is how they see it working properly. I know a number of lads, agricultural contractors, who have gone out of business in the last year. At the recent protests there were echoes of 2008 when many agricultural contractors went to the wall. There was huge fear among those contractors who lived through that period. They definitely do not want to go through a similar situation again. As we all know, the margins for these contractors are small. Their outgoings are huge and the leasing of machinery is huge. They might pay €400,000 for a harvester that might only do two or three months' work in the year. Often agricultural contractors are the very last to get paid. The fellow who sells the fertiliser gets paid first. He gets paid before the contractor. There is an obligation on the Minister to protect food production from global shocks and to enhance food security. Why was the price of agri-diesel not meaningfully reduced in the first funding tranche? That points to the fact that the Government's eye was off the ball and that agri-diesel was an afterthought. Why was that the case? Why was it left until after the Easter break when men were really fighting for their livelihoods and those of their families? There are also questions about how this rebate scheme is going to work. Has the Minister a definition of what a contractor is? A lot of contractors and fishermen I am hearing from are concerned that they will be outside the remit of this rebate scheme. That is a huge concern for them. What will that scheme look like? When will the agri-sector benefit from that scheme? Has the Minister any idea how he will roll it out? I know there is an idea of how it will be rolled out for farmers. Has he considered the carbon tax element? As Senator O'Donovan has said, there are no alternatives for these guys. They have no alternative. Farmers know the difficulty with Government schemes through TAMS and ACRES, which are overly bureaucratic with the Department nearly wanting to know the colour of your underwear. Is the new scheme going to be based on last year's diesel receipts? There can be a difference in diesel spend in the past year, particularly with so many contractors going out of business. Some of them will have to take on more work and more machines, and I know one contractor who says he has 1,000 acres extra silage to cut. During the bank bailout the farmers were asked to increase food productivity to try to bring us out of that recession. Farmers bought more land and invested heavily in their businesses. They are now in my view being penalised by the same Government for that. Does the Minister agree with Leo Varadkar's comments at the weekend that it is the people in urban areas who are paying all the bills while farmers are the ones receiving a lot of subsidies? Does he think farmers are a burden on the State? I want to pick up on Senator O'Donovan's point. He spoke about the €750 million package being brilliant. I say that RTÉ got €750 million over a few years. I know people like Senator Joe Conway were stopped from going to funerals and that, and some people were badly inconvenienced. I know these men who were protesting, and they were protesting to save their businesses and to be heard. --- 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