Results 11,941-11,960 of 24,065 for speaker:Charlie McConalogue

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: I hope that we make significant progress in the year ahead. The Deputy is correct that part of the increased expenditure is due to the reduction in the European allocation towards the TB eradication programme. The increased costs are also due to the additional reactor herds and there are increased costs around that because of compensation. Broadly the number of tests remains similar even...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: It is a demand-led scheme. We would hope that over the course of the year we would be able to reduce the reactor numbers. The finance group in the TB forum will certainly assess and monitor the cost as it evolves. Primarily the increased cost has been borne by the Department. It is primarily down to the cost of compensation. I do not have the figure for the reduction in the EU...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: The figures there are broadly based on the number of animals in the country and the number of tests we project for the year ahead. The significant change in the past year was the change in compensation. We went from 3.5% to 4.5%, so in the initial budget last year that would have been €37 million, whereas at the end of the year it was €43.9 million and this year we have...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: Wildlife comes under the Department, and the costs associated with the badger vaccinations come within that as well. The 2021 Estimate for badger vaccination is €1.8 million. That is up significantly. Last year it would have been €900,000 so that has doubled for the year ahead and it is covered by the Department's budget.

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: That would come under the veterinary and regional laboratory Votes. There is no specific allocation for it within the Vote we have but it is a Department expense and it would come within the expenses associated with our veterinary side.

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: Importantly, we have established a TB forum and, within that, we have three working groups. One of those working groups is focused on finance and there is a lot of work ongoing on a report on the issue of finance and a report on the current cost incurred. I will be informed by the work of that TB forum and by that report. The significant burden and the largest part of the expenditure is...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: The majority of the cost falls on the Department. Farmers also bear a cost for the annual testing of their animals, and for those farmers who suffer reactors, there is a tremendous disruptive cost, despite the compensation that is in place. There is a new TB strategy in place and, as part of that, there is a finance committee on that in one of the three key working groups. That finance...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: This issue comes up regularly in engagements between the farm organisations and the Department. Obviously, in addition to the immense stress and challenge an outbreak of TB raises for farmers, it also poses real financial difficulty for them. The Department has a significant compensation scheme to support the farmers in covering the loss they experience. Farming organisations regularly...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: The significant difference in the payments in the beef budget relates to the one-off €50 million beef finish repayment in the middle of last year, which had not been accounted for in the budget the previous year. The difference between the €135 million in the final 2020 Estimate and the 2021 Estimate amounts to that €50 million.

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: No, that was entirely Exchequer funded. The previous beef emergency aid scheme was co-funded between the Department and the European Union. The Deputy asked about the reduced numbers in the sheep welfare scheme. I extended that scheme and it is very much down to the numbers applying and participating in it. It is as open as it was previously. I am trying to choose a reference year that...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: We have discussed this on many occasions. There have been significant challenges in respect of the forestry programme, especially around the issuing of licences from the Department. This emanated from a change in the level of ecological input required in licences compared with before. This led to a significant logjam last year. It became acute at the end of the year and is still acute...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: The environmental schemes are important anchor schemes within Pillar 2. They have had a good success rate in terms of farmers being willing to participate in them. They have returned a good deal for the rural countryside and the environment. They have been significant in respect of the income they have generated and provided for farm families. They started off with the REPS and we then...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: I thank Deputy Fitzmaurice for those questions. Regarding GLAS, as the Deputy is aware, I provided for that scheme to be continued this year during the transition period. It had been at full participation levels up to this point. Some farmers decided not to extend their participation in the scheme by one year, so that accounts for the drop-off in participation levels.

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: Yes, that explains the approximately 6,000 fewer farmers in this category.

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: Those 6,000 farmers chose not to renew their participation in the scheme for this year.

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: Obviously, the opportunity was there for them to take part. I worked to ensure the way in which GLAS was extended was as practical and free of hassle as possible to allow farmers to continue to be able to participate and to undertake actions as part of the scheme instead of it being an additional burden on them. Having said that, however, about 6,000 farmers-----

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: -----decided to not continue participating in GLAS for an extra year. Turning to the knowledge transfer scheme, the Deputy is right. It is tapering off coming out of the outgoing CAP. Programmes that were running had come to the end of their timeframe. In the previous year, there was €5 million in the area of knowledge transfer. Closing out those schemes this year will see that...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: I thank the Deputy. My objective as Minister is to support farmers and farming incomes in every way I can. I am constrained in how I can do that in a transition period between one CAP programme and another. I maximise every opportunity available to me to try to ensure that every opportunity is provided to farmers to continue to have their income maintained, hence the continuation of the...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: I thank the Deputy. First, I refer him to my earlier comments on forestry. I totally agree with him on the fact there is a massive challenge here and much of it lies at the Department's door with regard to the delay in licensing. There were reasons and backgrounds for that in terms of the change in legislation and the court decision which very much changed the level of input, particularly...

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised) (30 Mar 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: I do not have those specific figures but I will get back to the Deputy on how much is going to grants and afforestation. The significant majority of the funding goes to recurrent annual premiums, as opposed to the one-off afforestation grant that is a smaller part of the overall annual budget. In the past couple of years we have seen a carry-over from the forestry budget in the form of...