Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Durkan for raising this important point. As he will be aware, political agreement on CAP reform was reached at the end of June. The agreement strikes the right balance between ensuring a fair distribution of payments between farmers and achieving a higher level of environmental and climate ambition. This is a fair, flexible and farmer-friendly deal in the context of the many competing pressures we face in reaching a solution.

The agreement provides member states with the flexibilities required to implement the CAP in a way that best suits their national circumstances, more than has ever been the case. This flexibility was one of our key objectives, and we intend to use it as effectively and as fairly as possible to ensure that our CAP strategic plan, CSP, will be designed in a way that secures a sustainable future for Irish agriculture on all levels — economically, environmentally and socially. We cannot have one without the other; they are all interlinked, as our agrifood strategy for 2030 recognises, based on Ireland taking a food-systems approach.

As the Deputy will be aware, the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement came into effect on 1 January 2021. It creates a new framework for the future EU–UK relationship based on tariff and quota-free trading arrangements. Now that the UK is outside the Single Market and customs union, it is setting its own import policy, including in regard to controls on imports from the EU. The next phase of these controls will come into effect from 1 October 2021. All consignments of products of animal origin moved to or through Great Britain must be accompanied by an export health certificate and pre-notified to UK authorities.

My Department continues to refine its preparations, which include the deployment of the necessary staffing resources, IT systems and administrative processes to meet the requirements. Industry will also have a vital role to play in ensuring that these requirements can be met as seamlessly as possible, through consolidating and simplifying their official certification requirements to the greatest extent possible.

I am satisfied, as are my colleagues in the Department, that a collaborative approach, involving the Government and stakeholders, to meeting the challenges that lie ahead will ensure a viable agrifood sector.

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