I thank the Senator for raising those points and articulating very well the emotion there was and is around what was a terrible time in our country. My colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, regrets that he cannot attend today. He is on a trade mission overseas representing Irish farmers and the Irish agrifood industry and he has asked me to attend in his place. The foot and mouth crisis in Ireland in 2000 and 2001 was a particularly harrowing and stressful time for busine…

I assure the Senator that I understand the gravity of the picture she has painted. I, and everyone in the farming community, will not quickly forget the events during the foot and mouth crisis. It is estimated that the culling within the Cooley Peninsula impacted 48,744 sheep, 166 goats, 1,123 cattle, 2,908 pigs and 280 deer. Outside the Cooley Peninsula, it is estimated that 3,826 sheep and 207 cattle were also culled. Those numbers paint a very clear picture of how the Cooley Peninsula and Louth farmers in partic…

It is a special exemption we are lucky to have.

We have the exemption.

ACRES, which has been raised here, is a hugely popular scheme with farmers. While we had a target of attracting 30,000 farmers into the scheme, it was oversubscribed and 46,000 farmers applied for it. Great work was done in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to be able to facilitate all of those applicants and meet the huge level of demand from farmers. I am not familiar with the specific points raised by the Deputy but I will look into them and come back to him specifically on peat.

He never said that. He said in the Chamber yesterday that he would meet them.

He said it clearly in the House yesterday. The Deputy can check the record of the House from yesterday. He said he would be in the Dáil between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Do not misrepresent what he said.

He met them.

That was because he was in the House. The Deputy knows that.

Sorry nothing. Do not misrepresent it.

I will call the Deputy out when he is not telling the truth.

It was Questions to the Taoiseach.

I thank the Deputy for raising this important question. A vibrant sheep sector is an integral element of a balanced regional economy and sheep farmers are committed to producing a world-class, safe and sustainable product. Although there has been a solid and sustained increase in average sheep prices since the end of February, I recognise that sheep farmers are experiencing more difficult market conditions in 2023 than in recent years. Market prices are obviously a commercial matter to be bargained between supplier…

We would love the sheep sector to be able to qualify for funding under the Brexit adjustment reserve, but it is not easy to prove the current challenges faced by the sector are directly linked to Brexit. The big challenges from Brexit are down the line and the medium-term risks are related to future trade deals. The EU will make deals. The UK has not yet done the deals with New Zealand and Australia. We are not yet affected in this regard but these are the challenges. Some of the trade deals will provide opportunit…

The Deputies should have no doubt that we recognise the importance of the sheep sector. We want a vibrant one in the future and understand the challenges it has faced. A specific question was on the Brexit adjustment reserve. In this regard, it is right that we sweat every opportunity and analyse every avenue where there might be funding we can secure. Making the specific case has not proved possible to date. We still want to examine every opportunity to offer support, as requested by Deputy Durkan. That is why man…

I thank Deputy Durkan for raising this really important issue. He is dead right in that, as we face the challenge of combating the worst effects of climate change, we face competing demands. I am always struck by the UN sustainability goals, of which there are 17. One is about addressing climate change. The second one is about having zero hunger in the world by 2030. In the context of a growing global population, we need to produce more food to achieve that. Therefore, the question is how to meet the competing dema…

I am in complete agreement with Deputy Durkan on this point. When we talk about these competing factors, one thing sometimes gets lost in this debate. When we talk about food security, some people think food security is us just producing enough food for ourselves and do not worry about Ireland having to export all the food we export. This is not the right approach. Out of 113 countries, Ireland has been judged to be the second most food secure country in the world. This is not because we produce every bit of food i…

I thank the Deputy for giving us the opportunity to debate this important point in the House. They are not mutually exclusive points. I am in agreement with the Deputy that we can do this. This Government will support farmers to continue to produce safe, nutritious and top quality food - nutrient-dense food that is needed around the world for our growing population. We will support them to do that with a reducing emissions profile that is a more environmentally friendly way of producing that food into the future. H…

Come on.