Mr. Tom Canning:

What happened in relation to the contract is that we were awarded what was called an informal environmental survey contract with the Department of agriculture, which amounted to about €5 million to complete that contract, including payment to the farmers. The Department did not fulfil that contract and as a result of that, our members and our association had invested in training and the employment of specialists to train and provide support service to our members. Indeed, some of our members employed additional graduates to take on board this additional work. However, when that contract was not fulfilled, we were left with a hole in our finances within our own association of over €300,000, which is a significant cost that each and every one of our members now has to bear. We are taking about €1,500 per adviser on top of the additional costs they have had to bear. As well as that, we were getting some small supports in terms of the promotion of organics, in terms of forestry and in terms of the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES. That was withdrawn in 2024. In effect, we are left now without any State supports whatsoever throughout 2025.

When I look at the future in relation to the new nitrate regulations here and the protection of water quality, and this is going to answer part of Deputy Fitzmaurice's question, the real situation is that we seem to be hanging our coat on two key programmes: one is the agricultural sustainability and support advisory programme, ASSAP, and the other is the water EIP. We have been excluded from that programme to date. That is a major part of the next strategy on improvements to water quality and that is going to continue in the future. Therefore, for another five years, potentially, we, as private agriculture consultants servicing 64,500 farmers in the country, are going to be excluded. Those 64,500 farmers are going to be denied access to critical information in terms of implementing mitigation measures and, at the end of the day, achieving the objected we all want in improving water quality.

In comparison, in terms of looking at the structure at the moment, we operate commercial businesses here. We have to compete against Teagasc. We charge the same fees as Teagasc. We provide exactly the same services. Yet the Teagasc advisory service gets a subsidy of €27 million and an additional €14 million in fees that it brings in, which equates to €621, according to the Jim Power report. That is slightly outdated; that is from 2019. Those figures have even increased significantly since then. That is additional supports that we have to compete with in the private sector. It really is not a level playing field, and that is our argument here. We are not here to knock Teagasc, however. We are here to sell the positives that we can bring to this. What we can bring to this is a pool of dedicated, experienced, professional, qualified people but above all, trusted professionals in our own local areas who farmers within our areas can easily access and can trust - I will stress trust - in the advice we are giving them in the longer term to improve the sustainability of their farms.