Finance Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-02 ============================================================ Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister of State to the House and take on board everything that Senator Casey has clearly said. I welcome the clarity brought by the Bill. To be realistic, the Seanad is a revising Chamber but this Bill has been approved by Dáil Éireann and we know the arithmetic. The Government said there would be no cliff edge and that is clearly not going to happen, which is good. I welcome that. I do not want to take up all of my time. I flag agriculture. I sit on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food and am elected to the Agricultural Panel. I have an interest in the horticultural and forestry sectors, as well as the broader agricultural sector, but particularly the agrifood sector. The Minister of State knows, as do I and everyone else in the Chamber, that the agricultural sector is heavily reliant on green diesel and other forms of energy and diesel. Energy has a very significant role and I acknowledge the Government's support and commitment to the horticultural sector. It brought in particular measures to support the sector, particularly around energy. I am thinking in particular of mushroom production. We have perhaps the finest production of mushrooms in Europe, if not the world. Our mushrooms are exported all over Europe. It is a time-sensitive fresh food product so it is critical there is no break or delay in the roll-over and turnover of production. We also have salad crops. We want to grow more food. It is part of the Bord Bia strategy, Food Vision 2030. It is also Government policy that we continue to expand the growth of salads, vegetables and fruit crops. We know that with our climate, there is a need to have a lot of this under cloches, tunnels and glass, etc. Energy is, therefore, critically important, particularly diesel, as it is to the forestry sector. That sector is reliant on it. We also have ambitious plans for forestry. We have ambitious plans for agriculture. Fuel is a critical component of that. The Minister of State will be aware of that significance. He will also be aware that the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, has issued a number of calls in recent days in commentary in relation to these supports. All I am saying is that we must keep our antennae up. We must be responsive and the Government must be agile and flexible enough to be able to turn up or recalibrate the supports, particularly for the sector that I am speaking about. There is volatility out there. There is volatility and uncertainty in the world order and the impact on oil. That is important. What I am saying is that we must continue to be open to monitoring the situation and being responsive to the needs of this particular sector. People also want that in the private domestic home sector. That is important. The Minister of State mentioned retrofit, which is important. We need to expand our ambition for retrofitting, particularly in areas where there are carbon neutral alternatives. Last night, at a meeting of the Committee on Agriculture and Food, attended by me and Senator Collins as members of the committee, we had a whole debate about hemp. Everybody there spoke about the ambition and the science of hemp in the context of insulating our homes. Oireachtas Members of all parties and none, and the Minister of State's party is well represented on the committee, were highly impressed at the possibilities and options for retrofitting our homes. We know that if our homes are properly retrofitted and the supports are put in place for that programme of retrofitting, we can reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and that has to be the ambition for all of us. There are many strands to this. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House today. I thank him for the clarity in the delivery of his message. The request is simple. I do not doubt the Government in this area but it is important to put on the record that we are agile, nimble and flexible in our responses, particularly for the agriculture, horticulture and food sectors, which are important. Agricultural contractors are also important. --- 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/2026-07-02/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:09+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-02