Ms Niamh Brennan:

It is great that the Deputy was out with the Halpins at Welgro. It is truly innovative what they are doing there and it is good to see young blood in the industry, which is very rare these days.

On the carbon tax rebate scheme as it applies to oil, that probably will not make much difference and the growers will get a very small amount out of that. The natural gas rebate is of more significance. We brought this up recently and we were told it is with Revenue at the moment and that it is trying to put the scheme in operation. It has committed that it will be due this year, 2023, and we want to ensure that happens. To answer the question, it will not be worth a whole lot.

With regard to TBESS, we have explored that widely with potato, vegetable and fruit growers but, unfortunately, the reference period was not workable for the majority of growers. It did not differentiate between periods of high and low prices so while most growers investigated it and tried their best to get it, and I know an amendment was made that allowed a little more, but, unfortunately, it was nothing significant relative to the energy cost increases experienced by growers.