EU Meetings
Dail Éireann — 2025-10-14
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Martin Kenny (SF), Sligo-Leitrim

While I agree, at the same time, we need to recognise - I brought this point up at a meeting in Brussels recently attended by Commissioner Hansen - that this has the difficulty of undermining people's confidence in the EU itself. The vast majority of people across the length and breadth of this country have done well out of the European Union, as have the vast majority of farmers from the perspective that they have been able to expand and grow their farm and have good markets for their produce. Now, though, they see that the CAP budget, which in the 1980s was about 70% of the EU budget, is now down to less than 30% of it. This is a major problem because it is being pushed back all the time. We need to stand firm on the need for Irish farmers and agriculture to have a decent CAP that will make payments to them.
I know it is premature to suggest the national budget could be used at this stage to ensure farmers maintain their income and have those supports in place. We need to see an indication given to farming communities that the Government will not let them down and that payments will not reduce, regardless of what we end up with from the negotiations. A lot of farmers are very concerned that, in the coming years, they will not get the level of support they had in the past. I will ask a question later about farm regeneration and young farmers coming into the field. They are not going to do so if there is not a sustainable future. The CAP is an absolute priority in making sure that future can be sustainable.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-10-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:04+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-10-14