Ms Niamh Brennan:

Absolutely. We had the horticulture exceptional payment scheme, HEPS, last year, which was useful for many sectors. There were exclusions, which we were irritated by at the time, especially the heated glass proportion of the strawberry growers, who experienced much higher challenges compared to other sectors. That heated proportion should have been included. While I do not want to take away from this, they are trying to combat import substitution, which is what the Government is trying to drive, and the heated proportion is expanding the shoulders of the season by bringing in strawberries earlier in the year. The fact they were very sceptical about heating those glasshouses this year meant that, effectively, we did not have that longer season. It is similar with cucumbers, and I am sure the Halpins were also telling the committee they did not get to expand their season.

We have been calling for a HEP scheme or some sort of scheme that will work for all sectors to try to combat the input costs. Those costs are still there and the committee will have seen the Teagasc figures that were released in March, which, based on figures from March 2021 to March 2023, showed inflation was running at 35%, and it was still up 7.5% between March 2022 and March 2023. The costs are not abating and we are going down a scary road unless we get support for the sector.