I raised this on many occasions, including from where the Deputy is now standing. The commitment stands and we are working our way through it. There are many other things happening but addressing this is part of the team's work programme. It is something we are determined to deliver on. It is not something we are going to be able to do immediately, but the commitments and promises made will be adhered to. It will take a little more time before we can work our way through that.

I have to be able to follow through on any commitment I give; otherwise, the Deputy will be here in a month or two saying I made this or that promise. My commitment is that I will do what I have mentioned. The team is working on it. I do not have more specifics on the timeline just yet but we are trying to expedite matters alongside everything else. When I have more clarity on delivery and roll-out, I will update the Deputy.

The Deputy is badly out of touch. I travel around the country all the time and have travelled to every county in the country when putting the CAP programme together. I also travel around the country regularly engaging with farmers in every county and there is strong recognition of the funding the Government is putting into agriculture and backing agriculture. The Deputy should know that in the current CAP, of which this is the first year, we have increased our national funding commitment by 50%, which is the larges…

There is no substance to what Deputy Tóibín is saying. The Government is massively committed to supporting farmers at all stages of their careers. The Deputy should have noticed the historic step we have taken in the legislation we are bringing through the Houses, which will complete that journey next Wednesday, in relation to the new food regulator. The Bill is very much about ensuring there is transparency and fairness throughout the food supply chain. Some 90% of the products we produce in this country go abroad…

It was three or four years ago.

The Deputy is constantly peddling a narrative that it is just a matter of setting a minimum price, saying what the price should be and giving that price to farmers. The reality is that 90% of the food we produce goes abroad and is sold abroad. We have to work in that market situation. The Deputy should recognise what we are delivering and stop peddling a pig in a poke which has no substance or reality.

The Deputy should not mistake our allowing and facilitating his bringing a Bill before the Dáil as somehow supporting what he is doing. I see nothing of substance coming from him. He stated that Aontú found this and that out but Aontú has proposed nothing, not one scheme. It has not proposed anything in relation to the bar. The Deputy is running around trying to find a figure here or there and counting CO2 emissions from St. Patrick’s Day trips. That is the sort of stuff he is at. It is nothing that is going to del…

What we are doing over here is rolling up our sleeves and getting on with the serious business of delivering serious measures for farmers such as the food regulator Bill. Meanwhile, the Deputy is off peddling the fallacy that if we just introduced a law saying a farmer should get this price or that price, the world would be great.

It is time to get on with it and deliver a bit of substance.

We are doing the hard work of trying to support farmers and, importantly, supporting young farmers through the various and many measures we have introduced for them.

The sheep sector in Mayo, no more than in my home county of Donegal, is an important part of the farming make-up. It has been under pressure in recent months, certainly for store finishers who had a challenging winter with prices down on previous years and increased costs. With the new CAP this year, the schemes that are in place and the changes to the entitlement structure will benefit the sheep sector more than any other sector. Convergence will benefit the Deputy’s county, with the front-loading aspect for sheep…

I recognise that, of the various CAP schemes introduced this year, the sheep improvement scheme received a smaller increase than other schemes. We increased the payment from €10 per ewe to €12 per ewe. It is plugged in and guaranteed for the next five years. The outgoing sheep improvement scheme was an annual scheme running from budget to budget and paid from out of the national Exchequer only. Going back to the previous CAP in 2014, there was no sheep scheme plugged into that. We have now plugged this in and the s…

I thank Deputy Dillon; I will work with him. It is a really important sector. We are doing a lot for it this year. I know the ask is that we do more. As a representative and a Deputy for a county where the sheep sector is very important, Deputy Dillon will be keeping the pressure on me to do all that is possible to deliver more. I look forward to working with him in order to back the sector.

This is something the Deputy and I have discussed on several occasions. As he will be aware, I have granted unprecedented funding to piers and harbours throughout the country. In normal years, €3 million or €4 million would be spent on local authority piers in any one year. In the past year, I have allocated almost €40 million to piers and harbours, many of which are in Cork. I worked closely with Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan to deliver them. He updated me recently on the situation in Union Hall. The onus is on th…

Were I to get a capital application-----

Were I to get an application for capital works, I can grant that, but the onus is on the local authority to get to the stage where it can make the application.

I met Deputy McNamara about this issue and his Oireachtas colleagues in County Clare, as well as a delegation from the county.

The BurrenLife scheme is one of the great examples of what we can do from an environmental perspective. It was a pilot scheme with a small number of farmers and the payments were more significant. We are broadening out ACRES and bringing more people into the scheme. The vast majority of applicants who will be participating in ACRES in the Burren will be better off. There is a small number who were part of the initial pilot scheme whose payments will not be as high, which is something my officials are assessing to s…

I thank the Members for this opportunity to discuss this important issue today. It is something that has been raised on the floor of this House by colleagues from all sides. I welcome the representatives of farming organisations who are present in the Visitors Gallery. We all recognise the challenges faced by our sheep farmers over the past winter. I have spoken previously about the significant contribution sheep farming makes to rural Ireland. Beef and sheep farming account for most farm enterprises, and they are …

I thank the Acting Chairperson, Senator Cassells, and the many Senators who contributed to the discussion today including Senators Paul Daly, Boyhan, Lombard, Pauline O'Reilly, Boylan, McGreehan, Doherty, Murphy, Kyne and Ahearn. Many contributions showed a strong commitment to the sheep sector and many good suggestions were made. One of the lessons I will be taking away is that the next time I am on a train and Senator Murphy is there, he certainly has a good memory. He remembered Sean McNamara, the ICSA sheep cha…