I completely agree with the Deputy. This is a great success story. It is important and we are ambitious. The company the Deputy described from his constituency in County Offaly is a great example, as are many more in the Deputy's county, of the strength of our food companies. The strength of their products and their innovation is that they take farmers' produce to the market place and they are supported by the State through Enterprise Ireland and Bord Bia. There are 13 or 14 agricultural attachés, off the top of my…

A fair indication of what we will do in the future is what we have done recently. We went on trade missions such as to Seoul Food in Korea, Japan Expo, China, Germany, London and United Arab Emirates, where we went to Gulfood. Every Minister takes the opportunity of the St. Patrick's Day missions to promote the work, with Bord Bia and Enterprise Ireland, of our food and drinks companies. It can be Irish whiskey, dairy produce, beef or other things because we are exporting to more than 180 countries around the world…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. We have discussed the bovine TB plan a lot in this House, this year and last year, because bovine TB is an ongoing challenge, as the Deputy is aware, for farmers in Clare and all over the country. I am acutely aware of the emotional and financial impacts bovine TB has on farmers, their families and rural Ireland. That is why I am absolutely determined to drive down the number of farm families affected by this and who have to experience the awful trauma of having…

In addition to the compensation package for eligible reactor animals that are removed during a TB breakdown, my Department operates three supplementary schemes that assist farmers with the indirect losses incurred as a result of a TB breakdown on their farm. They are the income supplement scheme, depopulation grant scheme and hardship grant scheme. As part of the work of the TB forum, a dedicated financial working group was established to review the financial modelling of various elements of the bovine TB eradicati…

I thank the Deputy for articulating the points as clearly as he did and with passion. I understand the points the Deputy is making but as a senior Cabinet Minister, I also need to have full cognisance of the overall cost of the TB programme. Farmers may think that putting €157 million into a TB programme does not impinge on my ability to spend in other areas of the Department where the Ministers of State, Deputies Dooley, Collins and Grealish, would like to spend, but that is not borne out in reality. In 2019, just…

I thank Deputy Byrne for raising this critical issue. It is one of the key issues of our time as regards our agricultural and fisheries sectors and beyond. It is not specific to Ireland or even to Europe. In Ireland, we have the extra challenge that farm families put huge store in educating their children very well, and are aided by the State in doing so, and those children then graduate into an economy at full employment with a lot of alternative options. That is all positive. It is a bit like the challenges the r…

That is absolutely the intention. On the funding element, we obviously cannot make any commitments as to what the next CAP will look like for us here in Ireland until we know how much money we have to play with. However, the Deputy is right about Commissioner Hansen's ambitions. The EU's vision for agriculture and food identified generational renewal as a priority. This is reflected in the proposals for a post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy, as the Deputy outlined. The European Commission has also presented a stra…

I agree that the goals are ambitious. They need to be because we have a very big problem here. The average age of a farmer is 57 or 58. That is far too high. It is creating a whole range of challenges from farm safety to delayed innovation and investment and beyond. These wider issues are a nut we really need to crack. I recognise the role of Macra. I guarantee the Deputy that its president, Josephine O'Neill, is very good at articulating Macra's position and desire for a succession scheme. I really want to be able…

I thank Deputy Dempsey for raising this really important issue. It is something I am passionate about. In order to bring a coherent approach to dog control, policy and legislative responsibility under both the Control of Dogs Act 1986 and the Dog Breeding Establishments Act 2010 transferred to my Department last year. That was part of the agreement in the programme for Government. It was a wise move. I supported it during the talks on the programme for Government. Responsibility was spread across three Departments,…

I thank Deputy Dempsey for those points. First of all, to reassure her, the constituents she has met and the dog breeders across the country who do dog breeding well have nothing to fear from this legislation. This is to stop bad practice by any bad actors who might be in this for monetary gain, who do not care about the dogs and who are doing it to exploit any vulnerability that is in the law at the minute. Our job as legislators is to make sure we have tight and robust measures here. It was definitely an area tha…

We will get an opportunity to discuss all elements of this through the five Stages of the legislation when I introduce it to the House and get it cleared. I have not made a decision on the cap yet. I still have an open mind. I have advice from the Attorney General. There are challenges around it that we will get to discuss through the detailed phases of the legislation. Are we comparing like with like in terms of the sizes of premises, such as the difference between a garage and a warehouse? There are challenges an…

I thank Deputy Burke very much for raising what is no doubt a key point. From early 2021, the Central Statistics Office, CSO, agricultural price indices, which measure the level of input costs and output prices paid and received by farmers, saw significant growth and volatility relative to previous years. Unprecedented shocks including Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine contributed to these trends. The conflict in the Middle East renewed pressure on global supply chains and has e…

Deputy Burke's points are well made. I can assure him and the House of one thing, which is that there will be no complacency from me or my colleagues in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in terms of the price pressures this has on all of our sectors. Our sectors are very vulnerable. As I pointed out in my earlier answer, we had a good year, by and large, in terms of commodity prices for our products last year, but it is the input costs that can really get people when something like this happens. We…

I was delighted to be able to introduce the tillage sustainability support scheme earlier this year. I have not been found wanting in standing up and supporting a tillage sector that has been under pressure in recent times. The same applies to horticulture. It is gravely concerning that the vegetable and fruit crops element has been greatly narrowed down. We have lost businesses in that sector such are the tight margins. In terms of that market here in Ireland and what Irish consumers consume, a key reason Governme…

I thank Deputy O'Hara for his question. Negotiations on the post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy have progressed since the European Commission published its proposals last year. As President of the Council of the European Union, Ireland is now building on the progress made under the Danish and Cypriot Presidencies. Our priority is to facilitate discussions on the remaining political and technical issues, on the CAP-specific provisions transferred into the CAP regulation from the national and regional partnership pl…

What is fairly clear from all utterances in the 17-odd months I have been in this job is my strong desire to protect the CAP budget, building alliances with member state colleagues in the AGRIFISH Council but also here in government and at Cabinet, articulating exactly why the CAP is so important to us. Ireland is a net contributor to the EU; we pay in more than we get back. That is something we should be proud of as a nation. We took the structural funds in the early years of being members of the EEC and we built …

It is important to point out that we are talking about the Commission's proposals. Commissioner Hansen put forward the Commission's position last year as to how he would like to see the next CAP going. He has a lot of recommendations in that. My job, as part of the Presidency, is to progress the Council's position on the AGRIFISH Council for next six months. The Council is the 27 ministers for agriculture and fisheries across the EU and we will progress what our agreed position is. Our goal is to get a partial gene…

I thank Deputy Ní Raghallaigh for being in for agriculture questions today. It is great to see her here for this. A very important pillar of Government policy is to ensure the horse and greyhound racing industries achieve their maximum potential, and in so doing, contribute to economic and social development over a wide geographic distribution. The Deputy is well aware that our own constituency of Kildare South benefits greatly from employment levels and economic activity in this regard. Government funding, in addi…

I thank the Deputy. As regards the economic and employment impact and benefit of the greyhound racing industry, this is outlined in the economic and financial significance of the Irish greyhound racing industry report. I concur on the importance of care and welfare. A strong commitment to improve animal welfare in the greyhound racing industry is set out in the programme for Government, which requires Rásaíocht Con Éireann to continue to provide financial support for the Irish Retired Greyhound Trust, IRGT, and to …

The Deputy answered her own question in a way at the start by saying we have heard all these things about traceability and beyond. I can outline what is there, the fact we have undertaken a review of the fund and how it is done. That report is there for all to be seen. Rásaíocht Con Éireann operates a range of welfare initiatives to ensure the high standards of greyhound welfare are maintained within the industry. These initiatives include greyhound care centres, which provide high quality accommodation and trainin…