Agriculture Supports
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-14
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Martin Kenny (SF), Sligo-Leitrim

The fertiliser issue is having a huge impact globally. Even the WHO has said that it is going to have an impact on food production and could lead to global food shortages. This is a real issue that we need to deal with here in Ireland with regard to resilience and to finding alternatives. The Minister mentioned that work has been done on this aspect and I welcome that.
One of the alternatives I would like the Minister to note is that there is an awful lot of poultry production in the North at the moment. As he knows, poultry litter is a very good fertiliser, particularly in the context of the tillage sector. I spoke to a poultry farmer yesterday in the North at the Balmoral Show. He told me he is applying for planning permission, but to get it, he has to show that he can get a licence to export the poultry litter to the South to be spread. He has been doing this for the past five years from his poultry farm, but he is having difficulties getting those things sorted out. It is not just him. There are several others as well. It is quite a problem because they need to get co-operation North and South in this regard. I ask the Minister to consider sorting out this problem because it is a very good source of nitrogen, especially for the tillage industry but also for other sectors. It is very clearly available and something I would like the Minister to deal with. On the broader issue, we really need to get to grips with putting supports in place for farmers to be able to get the adequate amounts of fertilisers they need to be able to develop their industry.

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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