I confirm it is very possible that the Deputy will be able to eat turkey on Christmas Day. I very much hope that will be the case. We all know how important that is. I do not jest. This is important to our turkey farmers. I have huge sympathy for the four flocks that have been impacted. It is a devastating blow to an individual flock owner. On the broader scale, it is important to reiterate to the public that it is safe to eat properly cooked poultry and egg products. The measures being taken are to stop the spread…

I thank the Deputy for raising this point. While he is in a different constituency, he is the TD who lives closest to me, as we straddle the border between Kildare and west Wicklow. The challenge of generational renewal in farming has been widely recognised at both national and EU level. The programme for Government prioritises supporting intergenerational farm succession. Food Vision 2030, our shared strategy for the agrifood sector, states that generational renewal in farming is critically important to ensure the…

I agree with the Deputy in many ways. The question I am most often asked about generational renewal is whether there will be a scheme in the next CAP or what it will look like. I want to be able to develop a succession scheme and I hope to have the resources to do that, but young trained farmers will not make life-long decisions based on whether they get one grant in 2028 and put everything on hold until then. Generational renewal gets to the heart of everything I do. The efforts we are making to try to ensure we h…

The fair deal scheme has had a specific impact on farmers. While it is not under my remit or that of the Department of agriculture, I have engaged with previous Ministers for Health on it and I would be happy to work with the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, on this area as well. The last Government made changes around it and we want to be able to give certainty, clarity and comfort to people who are planning the transition of land in the most difficult of circumstances. We want to make sure the fair deal scheme …

I thank Deputy Kenny for raising an important point. It gets to the heart of what we do. From a food safety and public health perspective, a lot of the conversation in Ireland has tended to be about sustainability in recent years, what our farmers are doing, producing food sustainably and profit. When we travel abroad on a trade mission, the first thing that is mentioned, particularly in places like Asia and beyond, is our safety credentials. They are second to none and it is something the Department never takes fo…

Trade is two-way. In response to the Deputy's original question, I said clearly that we are in a space where we need to have absolute confidence that any food that comes into the EU meets our standards. Our sanitary and phytosanitary, SPS, food safety standards are non-negotiable. They are the standards to which we expect our farmers to produce food in the EU and we do not accept secondary standards for anything that comes in from outside the EU. Should we produce everything here? That is a different argument in a …

It is about balance but we benefit largely from it because we export 90% of the food and drink we produce. We absolutely need it to be a level playing field. We need to make sure those standards are there, that there is confidence in our products, whether the food is produced in Europe or comes in. We will reiterate those points, but the checks and balances are there. This is non-negotiable for the EU. It is strong on that and we will look for further assurances to make sure our consumers, as well as our farmers an…

I cannot be any clearer than I have been. At every AGRIFISH Council meeting, I have raised Mercosur and our concerns about it. I am not the lead Minister with responsibility for that; it is the responsibility of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, who has that key consideration. I take my role at the Cabinet table seriously. I use my role as a representative and custodian of our farmers and food producing industry to highlight points. I recognise that the vast majority of trade deals benefit Irish agricultu…

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Unfortunately, there have been four outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in turkey flocks since early November, one each in counties Carlow, Meath, Monaghan and, most recently, Laois. I express my sympathy to the flock owners concerned. I acknowledge the worry this situation is causing to all those in the poultry industry in Ireland. These outbreaks follow the detection of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in wild birds across the country throughout 2025. It is thi…

To reiterate, the Animal Health and Welfare Act provides that compensation to owners of animals may be payable if a cull of those animals is directed. It is specific. It has clear criteria, and rightly so. If a flock owner or farmer is being asked to remove their entire herd or flock for broader national reasons in the best interests of stopping the spread of disease, that is the most important thing. We do all of that as well as a mandatory biodiversity measures and housing measures to get ourselves back to a dise…

I thank the Deputy for his remarks. Ultimately, it is an important step in a process. The process now is with the technical committee that meets on 9 December. It was always our intention and ambition in all of our negotiations to get the best possible proposal agreed by the Commission and then put that on the agenda for the 27 member states and that technical committee to hopefully vote on. We still do not have a derogation. As of now, we do not have a derogation on 1 January. It is in the hands of that committee.…

I thank the Deputy for raising the important matter of the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, which is the flagship environmental scheme provided under the 2023-27 CAP strategic plan, with €1.5 billion in Exchequer and EU funding allocated over the course of the scheme. There are currently just under 53,700 participants in ACRES. ACRES payments issue on a scheme year basis, with 2023 being the first scheme year for tranche 1 participants and 2024 being the first year for those who are in tranche 2. Almos…

I completely agree that it is important to get this right. When I got this job on 23 January, there were 14,500 farmers who had signed up in good faith but had not been paid. The problem was on my Department's side through systems failures that had happened. We worked really hard and put extra staff on it. I visited the team in Wexford. We looked at the systems and tried to change them around. There was a lot of overtime and a lot of people put their shoulder to the wheel to get the momentum back up. At that time, …

I thank Deputy O'Shea and colleagues across the House for their support as we worked through the challenges on ACRES. I am committed to having permanent fixes in place so that we can get back to talking about the good things that ACRES is delivering for our environment. More than 54,000 farmers are delivering more than 9,000 km of watercourse protection through buffer strips on areas adjacent to rivers, streams, lakes and wetland riparian zones. More than 500,000 native trees and more than 2,300 km of new hedgerows…

I propose to take questions Nos. 110, 130, 146 and 164 together. I thank the Deputies for their questions. If what Deputy Bennett talked about is done, it will not be me who does it. I am fighting to try to avoid that happening. I am working really closely with the EU institutions and my counterparts in other member states to influence the negotiations for the next CAP and the next Common Fisheries Policy, CFP. I am continuing to meet my counterparts at monthly meetings of the AGRIFISH Council and having bilateral …

I thank Deputies Bennet, Smith and Moynihan for raising what gets to the heart of the CAP - having enough money it in. What has been ring-fenced is 80%. It is not enough. I agree with Deputies Smith and Moynihan in terms of the importance of generational renewal, the next generation and certainty for all farmers. In direct answer to Deputy Bennett's point around the NRPP and the national regional plan, what Europe is saying is that it has less money than it had the last time and we should go back to our country and…

At its heart was food security. The Common Agricultural Policy has been really successful and we cannot lose sight of that.

I move: That Dáil Éireann approves the following Regulations in draft: Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund Regulations 2025, copies of which were laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on the 16th October, 2025. I am delighted to have the opportunity to address an important topic, namely, the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund Regulations 2025. I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae. The horse and greyhound industries are an important part of Ireland’s economy and cultural her…

That is a shocking statement.

In the brief time I have left, I will try to make a summation of all the points that have been made and answer each one of them. I thank colleagues for their comments. I regret some of the polarisation of the language in some of the contributions, which I thought was unnecessary. This is something people from both sides of the House have strong views on. We should all respect one another's views without getting to the level of name-calling, which was very regrettable. I will start by addressing the amendment from L…