I thank the Deputy. I also want to mention the accelerated capital allowances scheme for farm safety equipment which was expanded to cover a broader range of farm safety investments in budget 2025. A suite of different financial supports are there. In relation to older farmers, three quarters of farm fatalities last year involved farmers over 60 years of age. The HSA's farm safety partnership has designed a leaflet entitled, Farming in Older Age , and this will be distributed along with the 2026 BISS, basic income …

That was quite a pivot, Deputy. First, the recall and the food safety elements are a matter for the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, which comes under the Department of Health. Any queries in that respect should be directed towards it. The Deputy has touched on the Bord Bia issue here. There needs to be a proper debate and explanation. Obviously, Mr. Murrin will be in front of the joint committee, and happy to engage in that. There is a complete lack of perspective in this debate given the integrated nature …

We have the IFA protesting, and the people who are protesting are being denied that detailed briefing by their leadership. Of all the things I am dealing with this week-----

I am dealing with a lot of things this week, including the outbreak of bluetongue, working on issues around the Agri-Food Regulator, making sure the carbon border adjustment mechanism, CBAM, does not have a bad impact on farmers and reform of the CAP. I was in Brussels on Monday doing that. I was in the Seanad yesterday on nitrates. This other issue is one being conflated and hyped up, and farmers are being done a disservice because there is not-----

----practical and fair space for the discussion on this issue. The Deputy standing up here calling for a head and for a witch hunt against someone who has not broken rules, and not wanting any debate-----

-----and like the IFA, not wanting clear information out there, is not doing farmers any service. It is not. I am going to leave it there. In relation to the actual question the Deputy put down, I am satisfied that the Agri-Food Regulator is fulfilling its overall statutory role to the highest standards, in particular on the unfair trading practices, the UTP legislation, and continues to work on behalf of stakeholders along the agrifood supply chain. In relation to its price and market analysis role, the regulator …

The price of beef-----

It is ironic that we are standing here dealing with a question about transparency, the Agri-Food Regulator and the importance for farmers of having transparency-----

-----when the farm organisation that is currently protesting outside Bord Bia is denying-----

Hold on now, the Deputy wants to-----

The heckling is a Sinn Féin trick. Let us park that one for a minute. The farm organisation currently protesting outside Bord Bia is refusing to allow its county executive chairs and the chairs of its commodities committees to receive the detailed briefing from that very chair about the nature of that deal that is being conflated and sold in a soundbite way to farmers. No wonder farmers are upset the way it is being sold to them, and the way the Deputy and others have sold this to them. There is a level of detail t…

-----that specific trade deal is worth hundreds of millions of euro to Irish farmers and to our industry. The chairman of Bord Bia has overseen exponential growth in the value of Irish food exports year on year-----

When the CSO figures come out in the next couple of weeks, we will see more record growth. This is money going straight into farmers' pockets. They benefit from the integrated nature of global supply chains.

For once, I agree with the Deputy on something. Responsibility for confidence in Bord Bia is spread broadly. It is not on any one entity or farming organisation. Deputy Kenny also has responsibility. The soundbites he is coming out with here, which lack information and are designed to whip farmers up, are also undermining Bord Bia.

The IFA's rash decision not to listen to the explanation and to rush straight out to protest - it had its mind made up before the meeting that it was going to do that - has also played a considerable part in damaging Bord Bia's reputation. We all have to work to rebuild that reputation. That does not mean getting a head on a plate. Government does not operate by mob rule in such scenarios. I will leave it at that, because this question was supposed to be about the agrifood regulator, which is a very important issue…

I am delighted to have the opportunity to discuss a matter of real substance and of real consequence for farmers for this year and from 2028 to 2034. The decisions we make this year and going into next year will be absolutely critical. I look forward to engaging with the Deputy and colleagues on the Oireachtas joint committee and to working in the very collaborative way we have done for the past year. Members on all sides of this House have delivered. While not everyone is of the same perspective regarding the appr…

The overall level of funding will obviously be dictated by the negotiations on the MFF by the Heads of State and Government. The Departments of Finance and foreign affairs are the lead Departments in these negotiations, in consultation with the Department of the Taoiseach. Ireland's position is very clear. We cannot support a weakening of the CAP budget. Our priority in the negotiations is to secure an adequate overall budget and a CAP that is simpler, fairer and sufficiently flexible to respond to economic, social…

I share the Deputy's concerns about simplification. Historically, we have seen complication. You see this with measures coming forward from Brussels, particularly from directorates general other than DG AGRI. We have the carbon border adjustment mechanism, CBAM, and we had the EU deforestation regulation. Those proposals came from a good place but their practical impact on farming and so on had not been fully considered. We then had to unpick some of those measures. We discussed CBAM for a considerable length of ti…

The positive case was found last week due to stringent routine investigations and testing of a culled cow that had been slaughtered. Antibodies were found, which showed the culled cow had been infected with bluetongue virus, BTV-3, last year on a farm in Wexford. We went in with our follow-up tracing and testing of all of the animals on that farm and the contiguous farm surrounding it. As of yesterday, unfortunately, we are up to 11 positive cases across that farm and three neighbouring farms. There are 11 positive…

I focused on one part of the question. I will respond now on the vaccines. The first animal that tested positive did so for antibodies, which proved the culled cow had it last year. As we know, midge activity can only spread disease when the temperature is over a constant 12°C, so we are really in the high-risk period from April or May until October. This animal had it last year and did not present symptoms. The other ten animals that have tested positive since are not displaying symptoms. Many of them tested posit…