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

Budget 2025 will provide much needed support and certainty to farmers. Across the country, farmers are housing animals, sowing crops and making plans for the winter ahead.

They have been through a year marked by difficult weather. The start of the grazing season was delayed, with dairy, beef and sheep farmers left to play catch-up. Back-to-back wet sowing seasons made planting crops extremely difficult. On a positive note, input costs for feed and fertiliser eased slightly from record highs.

Through this period, our aim has been to support farmers and maintain a focus on sustainable farm incomes as the building blocks for progress in the sector. The budget provides for a series of targeted additional supports for sectors that need it most, and suckler, beef, tillage and sheep farmers will all benefit. We know the importance of the livestock sector, particularly sheep and suckler farms, as the bedrocks of economic activity in rural communities. An additional €25 per calf for suckler farmers and €5 extra per ewe for sheep farmers marks further progress in the income supports that have been made available by the Government. Increased funds will be available for tillage farmers following an exceptionally challenging 12 months. Funding for ACRES has been increased to €260 million as we seek to match the ambition of the 55,000 farmers who signed up to the scheme. A series of important agri-taxation measures have been renewed to assist young farmers and encourage generational renewal. Increased inheritance tax thresholds reflect the rise in land prices. In contrast, Sinn Féin proposed to increase capital acquisitions tax rates while cosying up to the Social Democrats, which wants to cut agri-taxation reliefs despite the damage that would do to succession on farms in rural communities. Indeed, agriculture failed to warrant a single mention in Deputy Mary Lou McDonald's budget address to this House.

I have been meeting with farmers the length and breadth of the country in recent weeks, from the National Ploughing Championships to a number of public meetings on farms. Concerns about succession, incomes and the need for policy certainty have dominated these discussions. Budget 2025 could not resolve all of these issues - no one budget can - but it again underlines our commitment to work with farmers to address them. In the past four and half years, the sector has navigated a series of difficult and often unpredictable shocks. It has proven the resilience of the sector and I am confident there is a bright future for agriculture in Ireland. We are facing into the next quarter of a century knowing that we will have to produce 70% more food to feed a world population predicted to grow to 10 billion by 2050. Food that is produced safely, sustainably and to the highest standards will be required and Ireland is well placed to continue to produce that food.

In my time as Minister of State at the Department of agriculture, I have seen farmers’ commitment to doing just that while at the same time doing their bit for the environment. It is not a journey that begins tomorrow or that started yesterday; it is one that is already well under way. In the same way that we have turned the trend on our emissions, we will turn the trend on water quality, of that I have no doubt. This is a sector with a very strong story to tell. The €21.6 million that I am making available for research and development will ensure Irish agriculture continues to operate at the cutting edge of innovation.

I want to draw particular attention to the expansion of accelerated capital allowances, ACAs, for farm safety items. Unfortunately, ten people have lost their lives on Irish firms so far in 2024. Every death is one too many. I am determined to continue to work to make Irish farms safer places to live and work and we can do that by supporting farmers to invest in their farms. The list of eligible items under the ACAs for farm safety will include sheep handling units, cattle crushes and races, calving gates, livestock monitors and sliding or roller doors. These investments not only make farms safer but more efficient places to work. This accelerated tax write-off will be available in addition to the 60% TAMS grant available for these farm safety items. Some 30% of all applications under TAMS 3 have been for farm safety items, reflecting the appetite among farmers to improve the safety of their farms.

I am confident that this and other measures outlined in the budget for farmers will ensure we take another significant step on the journey to improving the economic, social and environmental sustainability of Irish agriculture to the benefit of farmers and the rural communities in which they live. I commend the budget to the House.

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