We will be giving this certainty. The situation now is that the strategy has been published. A public consultation is ongoing and will be completed by the end of November. We have not yet published information on the grant aids and premiums that will be in place from January 2023. We are finalising those with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. What is clear is that they will be attractive and higher than the outgoing scheme. The engagement we are having is about the size of the overall funding over th…

Will I answer?

Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan asked about support for the fisheries sector to deal with the increase in the price of fuel. It is something he has been raising with me and keeping on the agenda. I did step in and put in place an extra month of a tie-up option being available, which invested €12 million specifically to support the sector to deal with the fuel crisis at the request of the fisher representatives themselves. That runs up to the end of November. It started in June. I have been monitoring prices very clos…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. The proposed nature restoration law was formally adopted by the European Commission in June. The proposals set out legally binding targets in the form of a regulation that will have direct effect across a broad range of ecosystem types, both on land and marine. These proposed targets would require the restoration of parts of these ecosystems to good ecological status by set dates. The proposed regulation has the potential to impact across a number of Irish Depart…

I agree. Engagement with farmer representatives will be important in this regard because there is concern. The Deputy is also correct that it is very much at an early stage and is just emerging from European level at this stage. A number of Departments are involved and will be affected. It will be important from a farming point of view and I will meet with farm representative organisations and work closely with Government colleagues to ensure that our issues and concerns are clear at national level and clearly comm…

My team is engaged in assessing the proposals with a view to me engaging further with farmer representative organisations to discuss them. There is also a land-use review under way, which will be important in informing our approach. My Department and myself are centrally involved in that. The issue is important. The regulation and the proposals are getting significant attention from my staff and it is something that I am also paying close attention to. I will engage closely with farmer representative organisations …

The compilation of the agricultural greenhouse gas inventory is a matter for the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA. As part of this process, the EPA determines the total amount of methane, N2O and CO2 emissions generated by the aggregation of all farms. The EPA takes activity data, for example, total animal numbers by category or fertiliser sales data and applies an emissions factor to determine total emissions. Carbon measurement at farm level will become ever more important in the context of the recently agree…

I would not agree. I outlined in my initial response the activity that has been ongoing for a significant period, or since 2014, regarding carbon assessments, on-farm navigators that have been developed and carbon-footprint calculations that have been done in this regard. I agree with the Deputy that it will be really important for farmers to have an income stream from the sequestration of carbon. The EU is developing the platform on which carbon trading will work. It will be important to be able to step that out a…

The research, science and measurement tools will be really important. We are doing a lot of work in that regard. Other member states and other countries across the world are putting a lot of effort into this also. Getting the measuring tools right and accurate represents an important starting point. The infrastructure that needs to be put in place to allow for carbon to be traded and monetised will be important. There is a lot of potential, as we are very much aware. We are investing in the research that will allow…

I thank the Deputy. I am very much aware of the acute stress caused by a TB breakdown on a farm, and I am committed to driving down TB rates. Everyone in the industry is single-minded in their ambition to reduce the incidence of TB. As a result of EU Animal Health Law Regulation 2016/429, new requirements concerning TB testing have been introduced. These regulations came into effect in April 2021 and are directly applicable to all EU member states. The bovine TB stakeholders forum, which comprises representatives f…

TB rates have been going in the wrong direction in the past few years. That is not acceptable. The objective of a TB eradication programme has to be to eradicate the disease or see figures go down. It is important that we follow the science on how to make progress on this issue. The re-establishment of the TB working group, comprising representatives of all the farm organisations and key experts, is important in determining how to step this out. The Deputy is correct that farmers, whenever taking these steps, need …

There is no doubt that it is farm families that suffer the consequences of a TB outbreak. That is very damaging from a financial point of view. There is a significant contribution for farmers on an ongoing basis in regard to the testing regime. It is important that everybody works together in a spirit of partnership. That is why the work is done in a TB forum. I recognise the contribution of all of those who have taken part. They have worked in a very constructive spirit. They are grappling with some challenging is…

The seafood task force, which included representatives of the five fisheries producer organisations and the four main fisheries co-operatives, recommended in its October 2021 report that a voluntary decommissioning scheme should be implemented to help restore balance between fishing fleet capacity and available quotas, following the reductions in quotas for stocks arising from the Brexit trade and co-operation agreement. I announced the scheme in July of this year, and it was opened for applications by Bord Iascaig…

As the Deputy states, I welcomed the approval that I had sought. I brought all of the representatives of fishers across the country together into a task force to advise me how to support the sector. As part of the report, they unanimously sought a voluntary decommissioning scheme and I then sought approval for that. I welcomed the fact that I got approval for the scheme. As we discussed at the meeting of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine earlier, what we would all like is more national quota. …

It is a fair feat to be able to hold two positions at the one time, even in the one contribution. In one sentence, Deputy Collins says he is against the scheme, and then in the next sentence he is looking for more money.

In the following sentence, Deputy Collins was looking for more money for that very same scheme.

The Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation, along with all the other fishing organisations was part of the seafood task force, which unanimously recommended that there should be a decommissioning scheme. I am following through on that request. I am also following through in the many efforts I am making at European level to try to improve our quota position. There has been some success in that regard in terms of securing more blue whiting, for example. I am also battling at European level to try to improve…

We discussed this issue at length a few hours ago at the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Deputy Mac Lochlainn is correct. I have been working closely and listening to the fishing representatives on this issue for a long time. I met with them shortly after the illegal invasion of Ukraine to discuss this issue. They requested specifically of me that I would do a second month tie-up scheme this year to support the challenges with fuel for the whitefish fleet. I delivered promptly on that. It began…

I have put money on the table, with the €12 million to fund the additional month of the scheme, which the sector specifically requested of me to address the fuel crisis and the challenges in that regard. I accessed that from the Brexit adjustment reserve fund, because that is bringing fresh funding into the fishing sector, rather than take it out of the EMFF, which is already in the fishing sector and allocated. The option is still there. The European Commission has given flexibility to member states to use that ma…

As I said, I have put €12 million into this scheme, which has been running from June and will continue to the end of November and which was sought from me by fishing representatives. It has been welcomed by those who have availed of it and it has been important to them. I am now reassessing that situation. It is important from a food security point of view that fishing is happening, and that has been the case. Our full quota has been fished month by month. Nevertheless, the spike in the price of fuel in recent week…