Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising a variety of important issues.

In terms of regulation and so forth, the Department of agriculture makes every effort to keep the various schemes and the implementation of schemes as simple as possible. The Department engages closely with farmers on all scheme delivery issues. There is the Department's farmers' charter, which provides for regular engagement. There are formal stakeholder engagement structures and ongoing bilateral contacts. The Department also provides a range of practical supports to assist farmers, such as farmer information meetings, ongoing direct support through its network of offices, and extensive training for farmers and advisers. The introduction of a new range of schemes has involved extensive work from an administrative perspective, including the building of new IT systems, and work continues on resolving many outstanding issues in that respect.

Overall, the Minister negotiated a comprehensive CAP agreement at European Union level that has resulted in very significant supports for farming in this country. The Government is supportive of farming and of agriculture. The food production system in this country is vital and one of the big challenges we have is reconciling the absolute need and imperative of food security with climate security.

We have all witnessed the very significant rain we have had in the past number of months, and the water tables are very high. I acknowledge that on the tillage front, farmers had a difficult year last year. That is why the Government provided more direct support for tillage farmers than at any other time in the history of the State. The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, established a tillage stakeholder group to examine the issues. He is awaiting its final report. Direct supports for protein aid have been more than doubled from €3 million to €7 million under the CAP strategic plan and that was topped up by a further €3 million to bring the total last year to €10 million. We will continue to work with the tillage sector.

On nitrates, I have met with many farmers in respect of the nitrates derogation and what has happened. It is essential that the industry works with Government to make sure we get a renewal of the derogation in 2026. It has to be a collective national effort to make sure we achieve that target. The water quality group has been established involving stakeholders and delivering on our dual objectives of delivering improvement in water quality and securing a derogation from 2026 onwards. The Ministers, Deputies McConalogue and Darragh O'Brien, recently launched the €60 million scheme to support farmers to improve water quality.

On the Mercosur agreement, we have consistently at EU level raised our concerns about the impact of any EU-Mercosur deal on the agricultural sector, and particularly on the beef market, as well as the environmental provisions within that agreement. The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, has been very clear "that there needs to be equivalence of standards and there needs to be expectations on countries that are importing into the EU as we expect of our own farmers and food producers". That has been a clear line we have taken on the Mercosur agreement. We have insisted an additional instrument, comprehensive in its scope, currently being negotiated by the EU includes binding commitments on climate change, biodiversity, combating deforestation, labour rights.

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