Dáil debates
Thursday, 26 October 2023
Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions
Tillage Sector
10:50 am
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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60. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine what direct engagement he has had with tillage stakeholders; if he acknowledges that the emergency support package for tillage farmers needs to be more targeted towards tillage farmers unsuccessful in harvesting; if he acknowledges the need for targeted supports for the sector to ensure viability into 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47057/23]
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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What direct engagement has the Minister had with tillage stakeholders? Has he acknowledged the emergency support package for tillage farmers needs to be increased and targeted more towards tillage farmers who have been unsuccessful in harvesting? Will he acknowledge the need to target supports for the sector to ensure viability into 2024?
Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I have been in regular contact with farming organisations and farm groups on issues relating to the tillage sector. Yesterday, I met with one of the stakeholders, namely, the Irish Grain Growers, and last week I met the IFA tillage committee to discuss the challenging situation in the sector at the moment in the light of the poor harvest.
Earlier this year, I specifically requested and secured support for the sector from the EU agriculture reserve in light of the significant challenges relating to the weather and harvest this year. A support package of €7.1 million has been allocated to the sector under this fund. A one-off flat-rate payment of €28 per hectare will be made on the area of oilseed rape, winter and spring barley, wheat and rye declared under the BISS this year. Payments will be made on a minimum area of 5 ha and capped at 100 ha per grower.
In the budget announced two weeks ago, I secured an additional €8 million in funding that will be specifically targeted at the sector. I am currently engaging with farming organisations on the best way to utilise this funding. Obviously, some farmers have not yet harvested their grain. The farming organisations have made that point to me. I am open to their suggestions and will work with them to see how we can best utilise and structure the funding I got in the budget announced two weeks ago.
Fertiliser is a major input cost on tillage farms. To support organic nutrient utilisation where it is needed, I will be engaging with the European Commission to allow the introduction of a 70% TAMS 3 support measure for manure storage facilities on farms importing livestock manure under a contract relationship. I am also seeking to secure a separate investment ceiling of €90,000 for slurry storage investments.
I strongly support the tillage sector and have done so in recent years. I doubled the annual budget for the protein aid scheme from €3 million to €7 million. The tillage incentive scheme resulted in payments of approximately €11 million to scheme applicants in the past two years. Importantly, the straw incorporation measure I introduced for the first time has paid €19.5 million so far and I have allocated an extra €7 million to it this year in recognition of the pressures on tillage farmers.
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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It is difficult for me to continuously say that farmers are unhappy, but they are unhappy. All I ever hear from the Minister is what he has done and how it is the largest amount. Farming has never been in such a poor situation. I, too, attended a meeting with the IFA. It was held the night before the budget announcement and it was such a depressing meeting. The 70-odd dairy and tillage farmers who were there did not want to speak. The Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, who was present, stood up and said that the Minister had made an announcement off the cuff.
11 o’clock
The Minister got €7 million and he wanted it out there straight away. He offered the farmers €28 a hectare for an input cost of €600. What part of that is worthy of a slap on the back? I am not trying to be funny but this is our most important sector. When the farmers are gone, they are gone. The Minister needs to tell the public what it means when they are gone. He needs to tell the public that when we are eating beef that has not been sustainably farmed in Ireland, not only will it double in cost but it will be horrible. There will be no taste off it. The cost of living and the shopping basket will increase further. That is what the Minister needs to tell the people, because the farmers know.
11:00 am
Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the Deputy raising the issue here today. The Deputy's colleagues, the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, Senator Malcolm Byrne and Deputy Kehoe, have been in touch with me on numerous occasions and have updated me in detail on that meeting and the outcome of it. Nobody is looking for slaps on the back here. We are looking to see how we can support the sector through what is a really-----
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Eleven euro an acre warrants a slap somewhere else.
Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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-----unprecedented and difficult time. I want to see the tillage sector grow in this country over the years ahead. For the first time in the past two years, we have seen a 6% growth in the area under tillage. The really challenging situation this year is going to put real pressure on that. That is something I want to support the sector with over the next period. As I said, a few weeks ago we added an extra €7 million. There is €7 million on top of that from the European Commission, which will be paid in January. That gives us €14 million. There is also the other €7 million that was secured in the budget two weeks ago, which brings us to €21 million in support for the sector. I am working closely with the representative groups to see how we can best target that. While it has been a difficult year for everyone, it has been an existentially challenging year for some tillage farmers. I want to work with their representatives to make sure we target the funding we have made available at Government level in a way that provides the support to those who most need it.
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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I appreciate that it does need to be targeted. That is something the sector itself believes. I am not letting the Minister off. He plied his trade going around the marts throughout the country. I was at one of them. If I had been a farmer, I would not have attended another one. The Minister has not been challenged in the media because his message is now so efficient from how he learned to get it off by heart. We are an agricultural economy, and I can tell the Minister the farmers no longer feel supported by Government. It is plain to see. Every time I go to a meeting, I am asked what the Minister and this Government has sold us out in Europe for, and if it will be ten years down the line before we learn. Nobody in their right mind would do what the Government is doing to farming. The Minister of State, Senator Hackett, quoted figures on the Department meeting targets on forestry licences. It has not met one of the targets - not one. I have the file to prove it. The Minister of State said the Department was way ahead of the targets and had met all the requirements. It has not. It is spin, and it continues to be spin, while the Government is absolutely denigrating the whole agricultural sector. The Minister says he wants tillage and the policy is to improve tillage. He is selling out our dairy herd. They are leasing land at double the price they should be, which is decimating the tillage sector. What part of that does the Minister, as an intelligent man, not understand?
Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy is an expert at the spin and the criticism herself. She is not offering many solutions or anything constructive. As I said, I have been working with the Deputy's three Government colleagues in Wexford on an ongoing basis over recent weeks on this issue. It is good to engage with the Deputy this morning on it.
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Solutions? Cut the price of hydrotreated vegetable oil.
Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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One speaker only, please.
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Let us use diesel and grow trees. There are loads of solutions.
Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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A Theachta, you are out of order.
Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy majors in giving out and trying to show, through giving out, that maybe she might be doing something for someone.
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Giving out? The Minister should go to a mart and see how depressing they are.
Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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That is her modus operandi, and she has her approach well off by heart. There is also-----
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Eleven euro an acre.
Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy might not like giving other people a chance. I know she likes to give out plenty and to hold the platform. In relation to tillage-----
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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The platform is right. If the cap fits, wear it.
Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is out of order.
Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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If the Deputy wants to speak to herself, she can go off and shout on local radio. I am working to try to support the sector through a difficult year and to make sure it grows in the future and will continue to do so.
Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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It is the same message; it does not matter.
Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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We will move on to the next question, Uimh. 61.