It is not as big a concern that an animal had it here last year. A number of animals displaying antibodies now, showing they had it last year, gives us the concern that midges in that area were infected with it last year. These midges are lying dormant at present. Will some of them still have the disease when the temperature goes back up to spread it? That is the real concern. This disease is not passed from animal to animal. It is passed through a midge landing and biting an infected animal and then biting another…

I thank Deputy Murphy. Is "moderately extreme" a thing or is it an oxymoron? When I was in Australia somebody pulled me up for saying something was "terrible bad". I was told something is either bad or terrible but that it cannot be both. Deputy Murphy caught me with "moderately extreme". All joking aside, I thank Deputy Murphy for raising this important question concerning the resilience of Irish farming in the event of a significant disruption to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. AMOC is a massive …

When I first got this job a year ago I got many regular briefings on disease threats, risks, plant diseases, animal diseases, weather risks and everything else. It is a bit overwhelming and then after a while one realises we have our mitigation plans and our approach, which I will go into in a minute. However, it is important we do not catastrophise. The NCCRA, published in 2025, identifies over 100 climate risks and prioritises 43 significant risks across sectors. While AMOC is noted as a system concern, a full co…

I just listed actions.

It says it is low likelihood.

To finish the point I was making on the sectoral adaption plan, as well as priority actions in areas such as advisory and technical capacity, sustainable land and water management, we also have forestry resilience, species diversification, improved management and early warning for pests and fire. We are the fourth largest spending Department on research and much of that research is focused on the impact of our changing climate and building our resilience, whether it is in forestry sector, the crop sector or animal …

It is great to see such collegiality among the Louth Deputies.

I thank Deputy McGreehan for raising an important point on the role carbon sequestration can play in agriculture and the opportunities there are in this space. I acknowledge the Deputy is wearing a St. Brigid's cross. Both Louth and Kildare are very proud of Brigid. We are looking forward to the public holiday this weekend in her honour. Innovative technologies to improve our measurement of carbon sequestration on Irish farmland are important. My Department is committed to improving the measurement, monitoring and …

We continue to monitor the latest technology and the opportunities and the amount of work under way in this area is significant. The National Agricultural Soil Carbon Observatory is part of my Department's strategic investment in soil carbon research. Funding was supplied to the establishment of the observatory by supplying the scientific infrastructure to measure GHG fluxes from soils under agriculture management. There are 28 flux towers across a range of soil types. The observatory will place Ireland at the fore…

As we head into the weekend of Imbolc and the start of spring, St. Brigid taught us many great things. She might have been connected with the birch but in Kildare she gave us our county name - Cill Dara being "the church of the oak" - where she built her first male and female monastery. She was ahead of her time. As the patron saint of milkmaids and brewers, she had a huge connection to all things agricultural and would very much approve of the work we are doing to improve the sustainability of our agricultural sys…

I thank the Deputy. We will not let St. Brigid completely dominate today but while the people of Louth are proud that she was born in Faughart, I note she moved to Kildare pretty quickly and spent most of her life there. You cannot choose where you are born but you choose where you live. The targeted agriculture modernisation scheme, TAMS 3, which is EU cofunded, provides grants to farmers to build and-or improve a specified range of farm buildings and equipment on their holdings. The solar capital investment schem…

I will make a last reference to St. Brigid. I was jesting earlier. Kildare and Louth will both enjoy our public holiday next week, the third since it was established. I fought hard in government for the public holiday for St. Brigid. It makes great sense in many ways. With Councillor John Reilly and the community in Faughart and the broader area, we all share in the legacy of Brigid. There is a phenomenal opportunity for tourism and so on in that story, even beyond our shores. We all share that in Kildare, Louth an…

Maybe it is down to lack of representation. I do not know.

Absolutely. This is all about balance and giving farmers opportunities to offset costs. It is open to farmers, as landowners, to pursue opportunities to derive or manage income from renewables. That is where rooftop solar has been important. Under TAMS, it is only to offset high energy bills but if farmers put it on their rooftops through a normal system whereby they can sell it back to the grid and make an income from it, there is nothing to stop a beef or sheep farmer generating an income of €5,000, €6,000 or €7,…

The control of all animal disease is an ongoing challenge for Irish farmers and my Department. I am acutely aware of the emotional and financial impacts that an outbreak of any disease can have on farmers and their families across rural Ireland. My Department provides a range of financial supports for farmers affected by certain animal disease outbreaks. Section 31(2) of the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013, as amended, provides that compensation shall not exceed the open market value of an animal before its kill…

I absolutely empathise and understand. I remember when we had a reactor at home in the 1990s. I was still at school at the time. The devastation and the impact of having a restricted herd and of the cow going off to the factory was devastating. Financially, it had a significant impact, but emotionally, even beyond that, it created huge turmoil. I would very much like to be able to not have any caps on ceilings here but I have to manage a budget within the constraints and balance the interventions and the allocation…

The Deputy will be aware that last week we received our HPAI disease-free status again because we have gone three months without an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza. I pay tribute to our poultry farmers, to private veterinary practitioners, to my staff in the regional veterinary offices and my chief veterinary officer and her team in my Department because this has been a huge effort. At the start of the high-risk period in November last, it looked as though we would have a lot of instances. Everyone wo…

In 2019, the then Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment commissioned an independent economic and sustainability impact assessment, ESIA, which both my Department and Teagasc fed into. The ESIA, which was published in July 2021, estimated that beef imports from the Mercosur countries into the EU would increase by approximately 53,000 tonnes. The study noted that, assuming the additional imports were in high-end cuts only, and depending on other factors, producer returns in Ireland could fall by around 2%, d…

I remind the Deputy that the Government opposed the Mercosur trade deal, for very good reasons, which I have articulated. In line with our programme for Government commitment to work with like-minded countries that oppose the deal, I very much took a twin-track approach over the course of the last year. Every month that I attend the Agri-Fish Council in Brussels, trade is on the agenda. I have raised our concerns on the sensitivity of the impact of the Mercosur trade deal on our beef sector in particular. There is …

Irrespective of what way the Deputy tries to spin this, the record shows very clearly what way Ireland voted. If he talks to anybody in Europe who is in favour of the deal, they are very clear that the Irish Government opposed it. Irrespective of what he tries to tell people, the facts are the facts, and they are there. The Deputy can put down questions to the Minister for trade on all elements of trade deals. I do not have that competence but I have the role, as Minister for agriculture, to defend my sector and ta…