Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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6. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the further supports that can be provided for farmers to address the cost of doing business; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38529/22]

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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The cost of doing business for farmers has spiralled out of control in recent months, making life very difficult for them, their families and the wider farming communities that benefit from the income generated from agriculture. What further measures can be achieved, both in the budget and beyond, to help farmers as they struggle with the cost of inputs?

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for his engagement and for his advocacy on behalf of farm families over these challenging months. The input price challenge facing our farm families is something we are both very much aware of, as is the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon. Over the past year, significant price rises have occurred, primarily in the energy sector, with natural gas and oil prices reaching record highs. These high prices have had significant impacts in all sectors. Following a strong year for farm incomes last year, when average incomes were up by 26% to more than €34,000, Teagasc has forecast that a decline in 2022 is now highly likely, given output price increases will fail to offset the increase in production costs.

Significantly higher production costs will be a feature across all sectors in 2022 and, as we know, higher fertiliser costs and fuel prices are leading to increased pressure at farm-gate level. As the Deputy also knows, I set up the national fodder and food security committee to provide leadership and bring all our key stakeholders together to plot and lead out in meeting these challenges over the course of the year. The Department also has a rapid response team in place to do this.

In terms of supports, I announced a number of measures valued at €91 million this year to support the agrifood sector, including, importantly, the €56 million fodder support package, which delivers €1,000 per farm family to support the increased costs of making fodder, silage and hay up to 10 ha. I also delivered €20 million in two packages for the pig sector. I am working closely with the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, who is chair of the round table discussion on the pig sector and who has led out strongly on this challenge. I delivered €12 million for the tillage sector and then, with the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, €3 million for the horticulture sector, which has suffered a challenging situation.

These targeted measures are helping Irish farmers to mitigate the escalating costs they are facing. We are continuing to monitor the situation and, obviously, as we come up to the budget at the end of September, it will be very much to the forefront of our minds.

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister very much for his response. He may have noted that in my question I used the word "further" because I acknowledge very much the interventions that have been made to date. Current political discourse too often ignores the interventions that have already been made and that is not positive for anybody. We must acknowledge when things have already been done.

I very much welcome the fodder, pig, tillage and horticulture interventions, which are very important. However, the Government must consider every possible assistance for farmers in those areas we can control, such as taxes of which the Government is in charge, and in areas such as energy by examining whether more can be done on green diesel engines, or even looking at areas such as motor tax to see if more can be done to help our farmers. Every possible Government charge that is applied to farmers makes it more expensive for them do business and affects their bottom line. I ask the Minister to focus on these issues in the budget and look at everything to try to bring down the cost of doing business for farmers.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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As Deputy Griffin knows, these issues and challenges have been very much on the Government's mind in recent months, both at an Executive level and also among our parliamentary party members. It is something on which the Deputy has also engaged very closely with the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, and me, and we will continue that engagement.

The measures introduced in recent months have been thought through to try to deliver support to farm families in the best and most effective way possible in a way that supports them from a cost point of view, helps underpin their farm incomes but also, very importantly, delivers for the agrifood sector in terms of productivity. We will continue to reflect very closely on this as we come towards the budget at the end of September. We are assessing closely what the emerging and continuing challenges are.

We are working closely with the national fodder and food security committee, which I met as recently as yesterday. I asked the committee to come back with further assessments with regard to how we could support and grow our tillage sector in particular, which is important in the context of the Ukrainian grain supply challenges. I look forward to working closely with Deputy Griffin and everyone across government to continue to support our farm families in the coming months.

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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I encourage the Minister's work. In the context of budget negotiations - I have been there - Ministers have a responsibility to consider matters that are directly related to their Department and secure the best possible package. The Minister has already done that and I have no doubt he will do it again. However, I encourage him to also look at the bigger picture with regard to income tax and the universal social charge, USC. Taxation has a major effect on our farming families as well. The people who work hard on our farms all over the country, in every pocket and every size of farm, deserve a break. They are paying too much on income tax and USC. I encourage the Minister to engage with the Department of Finance to address what is needed for the agriculture sector but also to look at wider taxation issues. That will directly impact on the farmers the Minister represents. It will make a massive difference to our farmers in this very difficult time when they are paying much more to produce what they have been doing all along. I encourage the Minister to do that in the broader context of this budget.

Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate what the Minister has done so far but there is more that could be done. Farmers repeatedly hear that it is not possible to support them in certain ways due to European state aid rules, yet the European crisis reserve provided €15.8 million and allowed for co-financing at 200%, up to €31.6 million. However, the Minister opted for the minimal approach instead. What could have been crucial revenue for many farmers, including the pig farmers about whom the Minister spoke and who have been impacted by this crisis, has been forgone.

Fourteen EU countries believe so much in their farmers that they will co-finance to the level of 196% or higher but Ireland is not one of them. I know the Minister had to notify the European Commission of his intentions regarding the European crisis reserve by the end of last month. Given the current circumstances, I believe there would be an opportunity in that regard if the Minister were to engage with the Commission. Will he do right by our farmers and contact the Commission to see if we can we get the permission unlocked for that funding?

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Griffin is absolutely right. Farmers are normal citizens with the same normal everyday pressures on their families that every other family has outside of their daily working lives. Obviously, there are particular pressures in terms of their work life and cost pressures, on which the Government is supporting them with as best it can.

Likewise, there is a real pressure arising from the general increase in the cost of living and ordinary non-farming life. It is really important that we look at how we can reward and support farmers and families in general. We will certainly look at this in the round with regard to families as we prepare for this budget.

With regard to Deputy Browne's point, €50 million came from the crisis reserve at European level. We have spent that on the pig sector specifically. As I outlined to Deputy Griffin, I have delivered €91 million overall this year in direct funding to support farmers. I chose not to use that particular mechanism because it is laden down with unnecessary red tape. Instead of co-funding that €15 million and imposing lots of avoidable terms and conditions on that funding, which would have made it more difficult for farming, I stepped outside of that and provided national funding, which I delivered to farmers through a different mechanism. This was much more straightforward whereas what Deputy Browne proposed would actually bog down everything in red tape and would not be to the benefit of farm families.