Agriculture Schemes
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-14
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Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South

To answer the Deputy's question, and as I outlined in my original answer, there is provision for many of those new entrant farmers to be able to avail of TAMS in such circumstances. It is important to note that, at a high level, EU funds cannot assist in bringing a farm into legal compliance. It has to be legally compliant before it can access the funds. Where that deviates is where we have the agreed change around the increased ambition from 2028 onwards. As part of our negotiation on that, where the storage capacity for dairy cows is to increase from 1 October 2028, farmers who currently have sufficient storage capacity but will be ineligible because of that increased threshold will have two years where they will be able to avail of TAMS to support them in that space.
There are plenty of caveats there to try to get around the issue. The particular issue the Deputy has highlighted is probably because it is a farm partnership, so it is not a new entrant farmer as such, which the Deputy described it as, but an entering into of a farm partnership. It is one I will discuss with the Deputy maybe offline afterwards.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-14