Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I wish to discuss the recent cuts in the sheep welfare and beef welfare farm payments which have happened recently. I am very disappointed about this. The farmers I am talking about are seriously disappointed about it. They had asked prior to the budget that the amounts they were to receive would be increased. On budget day we were assured that there would not be an increase but that last year's payment levels would be maintained. I went back with that story to the people who had asked me. I was very disappointed when I learned about a week ago that cuts had taken place and that we were not getting what we were promised or what we believed we were to get. There is a cut from €75 to €67 to the beef or calf welfare scheme and a cut from €13 to €11.50 for a ewe.

These are farmers who are producing lambs and calves and they have to be seen after. When we talk about sheep farmers, I think of many fellas and the type of hills they have to travel to collect their sheep to see after them. I think of John Egan, who is now in his mid-70s, and his son Glyn. They fertilised their land with a bucket. They cannot travel it with any kind of mechanical vehicle. They manure the land and they do 600 or 700 acres manually. I think of things like that and the kind of work they go through to keep the lambs alive and to keep their calves alive. It is a really hard job. We are talking about generational renewal and young fellas carrying on where farmers left off. I mentioned work-life balance here today to Deputy Calleary. We must remunerate and reward these farmers because if we do not, there will be a serious decline. Our hills and valleys will not be grazed and they will go wild and we will have more trouble with fires and all that. These people have been doing a great job over the years. The amount of money per individual calf or ewe is small, but we are talking about a loss of €2.2 million to the sheep farmers and a loss of €3.7 million or so to the calf welfare scheme. That is a loss of almost €6 million in rural communities. That is a lot of money to lose divided among all the farmers. Then it is communities, shopkeepers, hardware suppliers, beef meal suppliers and so on. They are all going to take a hit with this.

I am wondering where the hell the money has gone. I got a land the other night in the agriculture committee when two people from the Department came in. The discussion was about anaerobic digesters. These are commercial things that are placed in towns. It came out of one of the witnesses that there would be grants of up to €5 million for an individual person who would build one of these anaerobic digesters. This is about satisfying the 2030 Paris Agreement targets, whereby Ireland would be supplying its own natural gas. This is part of this. Think of that - the whole country loses €5 million to just one person. Is it somewhere like that the money has gone all of a sudden?

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Deputy's question and the opportunity to set out the significant funding that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has delivered and continues to deliver in terms of payment schemes for the beef and sheep sectors. Payment schemes for the beef and sheep sector can be divided into two types. First, there are national schemes. In 2025 there are two such schemes supporting the beef and sheep sectors: the national beef welfare scheme and the national sheep welfare scheme. In addition to the national schemes, there are EU schemes supported through Ireland's CAP strategic plan. In 2025 there are two such schemes: the suckler carbon efficiency programme and the sheep improvement scheme.

Returning to the national schemes, the 2025 national beef welfare scheme has a budget allocation of €28 million, all of which will be spent, with payments commencing to cleared cases in early December 2025. The budget allocation is an €8 million, or 40%, increase on the equivalent scheme in 2024. The national beef welfare scheme attracted more farmers than in previous years and more calves will be paid on. This is a testament to the fact that the measures are practical, and farmers can see the clear benefit of participation. However, because of the success of the scheme and resulting oversubscription, to stay within the budget allocation of €28 million and to ensure that all calves up to the maximum of 45 calves are included, a linear adjustment is being applied to the voluntary measures of vaccination, forage analysis and faecal egg count. No adjustment will be applied to the mandatory measure of meal feeding. What this means in practical terms is that the payment rate for a farmer who has applied for all three actions will be €67 per calf on up to 45 calves. In 2024 the payment was €50 per calf, with the maximum number of calves payable being 40. Therefore, the maximum payment in 2025 will be €3,015, a significant increase on the maximum payment of €2,000 in 2024. A farmer with 25 calves would have received €1,250 last year; in 2025 the same farmer will receive €1,675. That is 34% higher than in 2024.

The national sheep welfare scheme has also proved popular beyond projections. The budget allocation in 2025 is €22 million, all of which will be spent. This is a significant increase on the €15 million in 2024. To deal with oversubscription under the 2025 scheme, the control mechanism is to pay for the voluntary action at €3.50, with no adjustment to the payment rate for mandatory actions. In practical terms this means that a farmer who applied for a voluntary action will receive €11.50 per ewe, a significant increase on the €8 per ewe payable under the equivalent 2024 national sheep welfare scheme. For example, a farmer with a 100-ewe flock doing all measures will receive a payment 44% higher than in 2024, that is, €1,150 compared with €800.

The total allocation under these two national schemes is €50 million, and the Department will spend the €50 million on these vital supports for farmers in the coming months. The first of the payments, €16.44 million, under the 2025 national sheep welfare scheme payments was delivered last Monday to over 13,000 farmers. In addition, in the coming weeks, payments will commence under the CSP schemes, namely SCEP and SIS.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State for her reply. I know it is late at night. However, I am looking at my documents here and listening to her reading her documents and I make out that we are in two different worlds altogether and talking about two different things. The sheep farmers were expecting €13 and they are getting €11.50. The beef and calf farmers were expecting €75 and they are getting €67. The Minister of State has a different story altogether and she is talking about different times and different things, but the fact of the matter is that these schemes are cut by almost €6 million. Where the €6 million is gone I do not know. Sheep farmers are furious.

12 o’clock

The ISCA Ireland is saying that payment rate for 2025 is being cut from €75 per calf to €67 per calf. One of is right and one of us is wrong. I cannot believe that so many farmers would be wrong in highlighting this to me. There is some discrepancy. The Minister of State might be going back further to when they were only getting €8 but they got €13 last year. We were hoping that would increase this year. Instead, when the budget came, we were told that we should be glad it was not reduced but it did not go up either. We were disappointed but we are more disappointed now. I went back and told the farmers in Kerry that there was no cut to the scheme but they are telling me now that there is. It is in Agrilandand every paper in Kerry. That is why I am here raising this.

We have to say to this Government, and I have been saying it every day, that we have to be careful of young farmers because they are seeing this thing of a work-life balance. They see their friends in Killarney, Kenmare or wherever for the weekend. They can go where they like but if you are a farmer's son or daughter, you must traverse the hills, glens and valleys to mind the sheep and feed them or else they will not produce lambs. It is not easy to fool anyone but do not try to fool the farmers because this is what has happened here, and I am in the middle of it. I went home with the message that the payments would not be cut but now I have been told they have been cut. The Minister of State is reading some different stories from the year before or whatever. I am not blaming her one bit in the world. I know she will take my story to the senior Minister. This is a serious issue and the farmers will have to be looked after.

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I will raise the specific issue the Deputy raised with the Minister. The information I have here in relation to the two schemes - the sheep and beef sectors - is that the Minister secured a further €50 million for those two national schemes in budget 2026. The Department has met with the farming organisations regarding those schemes. I will go back to the Minister and get him to come back to the Deputy directly to clarify the issue.

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I thank the Minister of State very much. That concludes the Topical Issue debate.