Results 301-320 of 4,291 for speaker:Martin Heydon

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: It is a statutory instrument, which is a form of legislation. That has to go through the legal services section of our Department. It is a lengthy enough process. Obviously, with all legislation, you have to be sure that it is right, the Attorney General has to be happy with it and it has to be robust and not have any unintended consequences. A memo will go to the next Cabinet meeting...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: I can absolutely guarantee we are ad idem. We are working well together. We are going to be a good team. I guarantee that enough work is going around for all four of us, with the number of issues that are coming through.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: You cannot say that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: I share some of that concern but I guarantee it is not on our side.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: I do not think there is any clock on us at all, Senator.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: We will keep her lit. I thank the Senator. He and I were members of this committee previously. We soldiered together, so I look forward to working with him in the term ahead. Simplification has probably been the most overused and misused word in previous schemes. The truth is we talked about simplification and then it seemed every new scheme we got was more complex than the last. On...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: I cannot be any clearer. Of all of the challenges, and we talk about ACRES, TB and different things, the clear priorities this year are nitrates and CAP and, in time, generational renewal, when I get the report back from the commission on generational renewal. Nitrates and CAP are the two top priorities. When other problems arise, we will deal with them, but we have to get through on these...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: The nitrates derogation is absolutely critical. There is no shortage or complacency on my part. I am concerned.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: There is misinformation on GAEC 2. The Senator asked why there is misinformation. It did not come from me. It is on social media. It is out there-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: -----and it is easier for people to believe words like "designation" and stuff. We will do videos all the Senator wants, but there is only so much I can do, if people keep spinning a line that is not true and people want to believe that. Michael Moloney is the most believable man I know so-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: The proof of the pudding will be in the eating for all of us.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: We can vaccinate cows, but the problem thereafter is there is no way to tell the difference between cattle that have been vaccinated or are infectious-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: We have research going on. Hopefully, that research will give us a result at some stage in the medium term rather than the short term. We are invested in that research, as is Britain and we will work with the British on that. Vaccination is not the answer for us because it will impact our trade. We cannot trade animals where we cannot prove they do not have TB. We are in complete...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: I will finish on this point. We have to instil hope again among farmers. I know what farmers think. They think there is an industry built around TB and there are too many people who do not want it to end. I want it to end. We cannot, in good conscience, allow what is happening to continue. It cannot be business as usual. I guarantee that the set of proposals I hope to get consensus on...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: As a newly elected TD, I wish Deputy Cleere the best of luck in the term ahead. I agree that challenges around ACRES are eroding confidence. It is my job to restore confidence in this system. I will do that by systematically ensuring the processes we put in place fix these problems once and for all and regain confidence in a scheme that has delivered almost €500 million to farmers...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: We had 44,000 farmers apply for the first REPS. As a Minister for State in the Department at the time, I was very supportive of trying to reopen that scheme because there was increased demand. There was a big budgetary ask in that respect. The additional farmers who applied, bringing the total number of applicants to ACRES to 54,000 or thereabouts, were all facilitated. I have to manage...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: This brings me back to an earlier answer. There are so many moving parts here. As to speculating about whether the final MFF will be a certain structure or a different structure and what the Government response to that would be, we are still very far away from that. I assure the Deputy that the Government, including the Tánaiste, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance, is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: I know the time is up, but I wish to respond to the Deputy. There will be no shortage of ambition from my side in getting the best possible nitrates derogation for our country, including to retain one for next year and to ensure it serves our purposes well. This is absolutely critical not just for the 7,000 derogation farmers who currently avail of it, but for all of our rural economy: the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: No, absolutely. I thank the Deputy for his sentiments and wish him well in his role as Sinn Féin's spokesperson on agriculture in the term ahead. The point the Deputy raised is a very valid one in that the MFF is the biggest part of this now because it is the next decision to be made. Once that decision is made, we move on to the next bit. In terms of my efforts to get the best CAP...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Engagement with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (28 May 2025)

Martin Heydon: We will have many discussions about the nuts and bolts of what we can do flexibility-wise locally but that is a long way off.