Common Agricultural Policy
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-09
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Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South

It is fair to say that across the AGRIFISH Council, all of the Ministers for agriculture and fisheries want to see the maximum budget for the next Common Agricultural Policy and the next Common Fisheries Policy. That is obviously what we would expect. At the last Council meeting, I made the point to Ministers for agriculture that we need to go back and make sure, in every member state, that if the minister for agriculture is saying this, then the minister for finance and Prime Minister should also be saying it at the European Council, ECOFIN and all of the other Councils. The Tánaiste is in Brussels today and tomorrow on this.
In this regard, the Irish Government is four-square behind the approach of maximising the funding for the CAP. Other governments have different approaches. There are the countries traditionally known as the frugals, which are concerned about the size of the budget and want it to be less. Many countries, in eastern Europe in particular, are demanding that a larger allocation of the spend goes to the area of defence than has been the case historically. There are also many countries saying they are not able to pay more in. There are a lot of competing demands, which is why I have positioned food security and funding for the CAP, not as distinct and in opposition to the request for more money for defence, but as complementing it because food security is an integral part of the question of security.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-09