Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Before I talk to the Minister about the wider CAP agenda, I raise the schedule for the women's farm capital investment scheme, in which women get 60% grant aid for TAMS 3. The normal rate is 40%, so it is attractive for many women farmers. However, when drawing up the rules of the scheme, the Department set a base year of 2022 as the year a woman has to have submitted a basic payment form. It is now 2025 and a woman farmer who took on the herd number in 2023 will have submitted three basic payment forms but will still not qualify for the scheme. It has been normal procedure in the past in various schemes that if a base year for qualification was set, it was moved into the next year as the years progressed. Some women unwittingly have become herd owners when their spouses passed away and so on and are locked out of this scheme due to the 2022 reference year. Will the Minister advise if there are plans to move forward the reference year? It is important that he do so. We need to encourage, not discourage, women farmers.

We drastically need to see an increased CAP budget that takes into account inflation over the past number of years. People in rural Ireland are crippled by the cost of living. Those in agriculture reliant on CAP payments have seen wholesale hikes in the cost of fuel as well as other necessities. The Government must step in and offer some relief in the upcoming budget. It is not acceptable to set its face against hard-pressed families with the cost of all items constantly rising. The delay in the payments, particular for ACRES, is inexcusable and cruel. It is just not acceptable that computer glitches are used as a reason to withhold payments. The Government had no problem signing off on the Arts Council's spend of €7 million on an IT system that has never been used. It is high time the IT issue in Department of agriculture was resolved. The debacle in ACRES runs contrary to three of the aims of the CAP strategic plan: to protect farm incomes, to recognise the hard work of our farm families as food producers regardless of where they live and to play a meaningful role in supporting our climate ambitions. We cannot to do this is we lose farmers' trust as payments are delayed time and again.

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