Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My goal for budget 2024 is to support our farm and fishing families in every way possible.  The funding I negotiated and secured is in fact an increase in core funding year on year. It will support the sector’s environmental ambition and on-farm sustainability while at the same time supporting farmer incomes and providing vital infrastructure to support the development of our fishing sector and coastal communities.

The 2024 Estimates provide a gross Vote of €1.942 billion for my Department. Despite the removal of Brexit adjustment reserve, BAR, funding, budget 2024 is €295 million higher than the budget available to the Department when I took up the role as Minister. We now have an extra €300 million compared to when I took office. While core funding has increased, the overall reduction in the 2024 allocation compared to the 2023 allocation is due mainly to the cessation of the BAR in 2023. The BAR was a source of exceptional one-off funding and was always going to be such.  Its eligibility period was from January 2020 to December 2023. This BAR funding was predominantly expended in the fisheries sector but also supported the genotyping programme and the national beef welfare scheme in 2023, which I have now secured national funding to continue in 2024.

Budget 2024 supports farm families as we implement the targeted supports for farmers provided in the largest ever €10 billion CAP strategic plan. The CAP strategic plan is underpinned by the largest ever increase in national co-funding, which is the largest increase we have ever had moving from one CAP budget to the next.

Measures included in budget 2024 include securing the €200 per cow payment between the two schemes that are in place. I had to replace some Brexit funding because €50 out of that €200 last year was Brexit funding so I had to replace that with national funding. We secured that. This year is the first year in which we ever delivered on that €200 for suckler cows, which was a manifesto commitment of mine at the last general election. The other significant step forward we have taken in this budget is increasing the sheep payment to €20 per ewe. This is a doubling of the payment of last year.

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