The Deputy has the floor so why does he not explain it some more?

Here is the Deputy's chance to explain it.

What about the 90% of beef that is exported? I ask him to explain that piece.

I am curious about what the Deputy is saying.

I thank everyone for the many comprehensive and well thought-out contributions from across the floor. This has been a good start to the legislative journey through the Dáil and Seanad. I will take on board the various contributions Deputies made. The Bill has been a while in gestation. I acknowledge the pioneering role of my colleague, Deputy Ó Cuív, as the previous Fianna Fáil spokesperson on agriculture, in driving this issue and putting it on the agenda of the then agriculture committee. I mention the work that …

I move: That the Bill be referred to the Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine pursuant to Standing Orders 95(3)(a) and 181(1).

I thank Deputy Christopher O’Sullivan for raising this issue, for which he has been a great advocate. It has also been a key priority for the Government, as well as for the three parties in government. The uptake in appetite among farm families for the scheme has proven very strong. We have had 46,000 applicants, when the expectation was that we would have approximately 30,000 in the first tranche. I would love to bring all 46,000 in. We want to be able to enable all farm families to participate in this and to back…

I rise to vote confidence in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage because this is a Minister who is making a real impact in Government and has delivered an exceptionally radical plan in the Housing for All strategy. This is the most radical plan in the history of this State in terms of delivering housing. It has delivered 28,000 new homes this year, which is its first year of operation. This is the largest number of new homes built since 2008. This motion is no more than a political stunt but it …

We are making a real impact. Legislation has been introduced and we will have all homes in Donegal fixed. Again, if you look at Sinn Féin in that regard, the Minister asked it for advice in advance of that legislation but got none. Sinn Féin promised it would introduce its own legislation. It still has not published it six months after we introduced the legislation so, again, if we were looking to Sinn Féin in that regard, there would be very little delivery.

As the Deputy will be aware, I have committed to helping the cohort of farmers known as “forgotten farmers”. This has been a long-standing commitment of mine from the time that I was in opposition to the time that I entered the Government. I ensured that it was part of the programme for Government commitments, and I have been following through on it since. The Department has developed a preliminary outline of a proposal to provide support to this group. I was pleased to have the opportunity at the recent Macra na F…

There is no resistance and the commitment is crystal clear. For many years, there had been no commitment to these farmers. There was no proposal, plan or Government commitment to address them and to making sure that a scheme was put in place to reflect the fact that they did not get a fair crack of the whip. I made sure when I came out of opposition and went into government that it was a programme for Government commitment and that there would be a commitment by the Government to deliver on it. I have been working …

I am engaged with Department of Public Expenditure and Reform around what will be required to deliver a scheme. That will become clear whenever we publish the application criteria and the detail around it, and not until then. What is clear at this point is the commitment from me to drive this forward and to deliver on it, as well as to deliver on the promise that I made to the forgotten farmers of Ireland, which was that if I got into government I would deliver on this. That is why I went into government. I want to…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. ACRES is part of the agri-environment climate measure in Ireland’s CAP strategic plan for 2023 to 2027. It is a voluntary scheme whereby farmers, when approved, will undertake certain actions on their land for at least five years. It closed last night and I want to recognise the massive work that has gone into the application process by the farmers and their advisers who have worked night and day over the recent period to get their farms walked and their applications in. I…

It will not be possible to open the scheme earlier next year because there are specific workloads throughout the year. This puts a massive workload on advisers and March-April is the key time of year for basic income support through the basic payment scheme, BPS, applications. We have worked closely with the advisers and their representatives on the window for applying for ACRES and on how we will do it next year. We have discussed that for next year as to when that period will be and it will be the latter part of …

I thank the Deputy again for raising the matter. I have been pleased with the reaction to the ACRES scheme. It has been well received by farmers across the country. It was a key commitment from the two Ministers of State, Senator Hackett and Deputy Heydon and myself, representing three different parties, when we negotiated the programme for Government and went into government, to put a strong environmental scheme in place that would back family farms, provide income from them and enable and empower them to do signi…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I thank all of those who participated in the food vision beef and sheep group as well as the stakeholders and representatives who participated in the food vision dairy group. As the Deputy will be aware, we have a 25% reduction in emissions to achieve by the end of 2030 from the agriculture sector as part of our overall contribution to achieving 51% economy-wide by 2030. The Deputy's party did not have a position on what the figures should be. I have worked hard to ensure…

I have received the two reports and at this point I am not cherry-picking different options or proposals within either of them in advance of making a final decision on all of them. That is all I am saying. My commitment to the suckler herd is clear and that is why I have increased the payments next year under the beef suckler scheme from what had been €90 on the first ten cows under the beef data and genomics programme, BDGP, to €150 from January, which is important for the sector. The suckler sector must remain th…

There are no plans at the moment to introduce such a scheme. We have two reports: the food vision dairy group report, which has proposed a voluntary reduction scheme for dairy farmers that had significant support among a number of stakeholders on the group. Some of the farm organisations reserved their position on that. We have another proposal from the beef and sheep group on which there are various views. Most of the farm organisations and the meat processors have not been in favour of any voluntary reduction in …

Yes, I will open up to new entrants next year because I want to ensure everyone who makes fodder or hay next year has the additional costs involved in that supported by the Government. As the Deputy will be aware, I launched the 2023 fodder support scheme on 2 November. The 2022 scheme proved to be successful with more than 71,000 applicants, with each of them due to receive an average payment of €735 - the maximum payment was €1,000. These payments began issuing to farmers over the past week. The 2023 fodder suppo…

There will be a great deal more work involved if we open up the scheme to new applicants to be paid by the end of the year because there was a great deal of work involved in getting the scheme up and running for the 77,000 applicants who applied for it. The details are all on the system. We opened up the system again and we take it they are applying for next year. It is very straightforward and needed to be so to have it done quickly. Bringing in totally new applications would slow down the system and make it more …