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This meeting has been convened to consider the 2025 Supplementary Estimates for Vote 30 – Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which was referred to the committee by Dáil Éireann on 12 November 2025. I welcome the Minister, Deputy Martin Heydon.

He is joined by his officials: Mr. Gordon Conroy, assistant secretary; and Ms Siobhán Dowling, principal officer. Cuirim fáilte roimh na hoifigigh. I call on the Minister to deliver his opening statement.

I thank committee members for the opportunity to appear before the committee to discuss my Department's request for a Supplementary Estimate for 2025. The Supplementary Estimate is required to make use of savings on the Department's Vote. It is also required to provide additional funding to meet liabilities in a number of areas, including additional cost pressures relating to bovine TB and farm payments due under the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES. An additional €98 million, representing an increase of 4.6% on my Department’s 2025 gross allocation, is required to meet costs that will arise in 2025. The Supplementary Estimate will also provide for the movement of savings of €32.2 million across a number of subheads to meet expenditure pressures arising in other areas. The proposed transfers and additional expenditure will result in changes to my Department's original 2025 voted allocation and I therefore believe it is appropriate to seek the input and approval of the committee.

The agrifood sector operates within a very dynamic and challenging environment. In 2025, farmers have been severely impacted by the increase in animal disease levels, most notably bovine TB and, more recently, avian influenza. Bovine TB has been an ongoing challenge for Irish farmers and we have seen a significant increase in bovine TB levels nationally in recent years. Addressing the current disease levels has been a key priority for me this year. Following extensive engagement with stakeholders and farming organisations and support from the Government, I launched the bovine TB action plan, addressing bovine TB in Ireland, on 9 September 2025. It introduced additional measures necessary to tackle the current disease situation. These measures are targeting both transmission between wildlife and cattle and transmission between cattle. The actions in the plan strike a balance between recognising the practicalities of livestock farming and the necessity to tackle a disease which has been increasing, year on year. It is vital that these measures are taken to reduce disease levels and to protect the livelihoods of farmers and rural communities. This additional allocation of €63 million will support and enable farm families who are currently dealing with the stress of a bovine TB outbreak to navigate a way out of a bovine TB restriction and protect those herds currently free from TB from the stress of a TB outbreak.

ACRES was designed to meet a range of environmental, biodiversity, water quality and climate objectives. In order to reward farmers for undertaking the actions to achieve those objectives, it is essential that we continue to allocate funds to ACRES to enable it to optimise the environmental benefits from that investment over the duration of the scheme. The Government committed, in the current programme for Government, to ensure that ACRES continues to provide an important income support to farm families while improving biodiversity. The additional €35 million for ACRES will be used to meet outstanding 2023 and 2024 liabilities, and to make advance payments to 2025 active participants.

My Department has provided committee members with more detailed briefing material on the specifics of the Supplementary Estimate, but I will highlight the key elements, broken down by the four programme areas under which expenditure occurs in my Department. Programme A, which comprises food safety, animal and plant health and animal welfare, is being increased by 11.73% or €52 million. The overall €52 million increase is due to the Supplementary Estimate increase of €63 million for TB being offset by savings of €11 million found in administrative pay, in non-pay areas and across all four programmes. This increase is due to the levels of TB in Ireland, which have increased throughout 2025. Over 6,000 farm families were affected by bovine TB in 2024 and herd incidence was at 6.04%. As of 17 November, over a 12-month period, herd incidence was 5.89%, with 38,243 reactors. The overall direct cost to the Exchequer of the TB programme, excluding staff costs, has increased from €52 million in 2021 to €100 million to the end of 2024. For 2025, the cost may be in the region of €135 million. The primary drivers of the increase in expenditure are compensation costs, the wildlife programme and veterinary fees for testing, which largely relate to higher incidence of the disease. The on-farm market valuation scheme is the principal compensation measure available to herd owners whose herds are affected by disease under the TB eradication scheme. This compensation is based on the market value of that animal subject to individual animal ceilings under the on-farm valuation scheme. That scheme has continued to increase, year on year, due to strong market values and the rise in the number of reactors. While market values have broadly remained static since 2023, weakened factory salvage recovered against animals, primarily dairy animals, removed under the scheme has resulted in the average compensation per head rising by 23.5%, year on year.

The total allocation for programme B, which comprises farm sector supports and controls, is being increased by approximately €44 million. This includes an additional €35 million for ACRES. In addition, with the savings identified throughout the Vote, I have allocated the extra funding to programme B. There will be an additional €2 million for beef schemes, an additional €2 million for areas of natural constraint, an additional €3.532 million for knowledge transfer, an additional €4.798 million for organics, an additional €2.4 million for tillage, and an additional €5.1 million for TAMS. As committee members are aware, ACRES is my Department's flagship agri-environmental scheme, with an allocation of €1.5 billion over the period to 2027. ACRES will receive an additional €35 million. This will bring the total 2025 expenditure to €295 million. Advance payments of €147 million in respect of 2025 commenced last week to nearly 34,000 tranche 1 participants and payments will issue to a further 8,000 tranche 2 participants this week. The processing of remaining contracts is continuing, and I ask those participants with any outstanding information to submit it to the Department as soon as possible. While I have focused on the funding required for paying the advance of the annual core payment, funding is also required for the complementary environmental actions available to participants in the ACRES co-operation approach, the provision of training to the participants and the continuation of the support and guidance provided by the ACRES co-operation project teams. Non-productive investments, NPIs, are one category of complementary environmental actions available to ACRES co-operation participants. I am pleased to note that payments for the implementation of approved NPIs have also commenced, with over €1.4 million paid to 588 farmers in the second week of November 2025.

Funding within programme C, policy and strategy, is used to optimise the sustainable development of the agrifood sector. Following this Supplementary Estimate, programme C will increase by €5.398 million to €436 million. An additional €11 million is also being provided to support the sustainable beef and lamb quality assurance scheme, which is managed by Bord Bia. The sustainable beef and lamb quality assurance scheme sets out standards for quality and sustainability in Irish beef and sheep farming. This funding represents an advance payment to Bord Bia in respect of 2026. This funding will cover the costs of Bord Bia audits for beef and sheep farmers in the quality assurance schemes.

The allocation within programme D, which deals with the seafood sector, has been reduced from just under €177 million to €173.57 million. Savings on both the current and capital side within programme D were identified and used elsewhere within the Vote. Some of the savings in programme D are payroll and administrative savings that have been declared by the marine agencies and the fisheries areas within my Department.

I believe this is a necessary and important Supplementary Estimate to provide for additional necessary expenditure under both the TB programme and ACRES. I recommend it to the committee for support. I am happy to respond to any questions that members may have.

I welcome any extra funding that can be made available to farmers. While the figures the Minister mentioned are welcome, we do not know exactly what they will mean when they filter down to the individual farmers.

We will talk about TB and I am glad of the opportunity to do so. There is a local farmer very close to me. He is a young man with a young family. He farms exclusively and does nothing else. The results of the TB test on his cattle showed that 26 of his cows have gone down. He is very concerned. He never brought in an animal. He has been free since 2012. He has bred all his own and is milking. The genes of his cows are A1 and he feels he will never be able to replace them. He thinks he will get €3,000 or thereabouts. Everyone around the place is agreed that these cows are worth anything from €8,000 to €10,000 because of their quality. According to the butterfat test and others, these cows are number one.

He was ruthless. If he had a cow with any problem at all, she was gone and he kept his own heifers. He asked me to ask the Minister a number of questions. Can any extra payment be made for his breed of cows? They can be vouched and he has the records for each cow and everything. Would he be entitled to any more than what anyone else would get at present? I know there are many others like him and we have to speak for them as well.

As for the other question he asked, 26 of the cows have gone down and the Department has been on to him and said the rest of his cows will be blood-tested, but the 26 cows that have gone down with the skin test will not be tested. He is very concerned about that and it would ease his mind greatly if he was assured the cows had gone down on the blood test. Otherwise, he will never know for sure. He is asking why all of the cows are not all being blood-tested at this point.

The farmer made a further point. It will take five or six weeks before these infected cows will be removed from his herd. We all know what happens the longer we leave these animals. Long ago, when people used to go down, the animals were tagged and before we knew where we were, a lorry had come in for a day or two to remove them and they were gone. To keep the herd separated now or to even attempt to do so, cattle are inside now with housing limitations. How does the Minister feel about those three questions?

I thank the Deputy for raising these points. My sympathy is very much with the farmer in his constituency who is impacted with a bovine TB breakdown. The hardship and stress the Deputy referenced in terms of his constituent is a key driving motivation for me having put these new measures in place and the new approach I have towards bovine TB eradication. What we have been doing to date has not worked. It is massive draw on my budget. I could think of so many better ways to be spending well over €100 million supporting farmers than having to spend it in areas like this. There is not only the financial impact on farmers; the emotional stress and strain is colossal. I remember what it was like to have an outbreak at home in County Kildare on our farm while I was still at school back in the 1990s. What I do not remember was any neighbours at that time having 25, 30, 35, or 40 reactors go down in one go, in one test, with skin tests. There is no doubt this is a dynamic disease and it is acting very differently now from how it did a number of years ago, and that is why we have to have a step change in our approach.

On the specific concerns the Deputy's constituent highlighted around not getting the blood test for the cows that have gone down in the skin test, part of the reason we have this challenge of bovine TB is that we do not have one test that is 100%. We continue to invest in research and we work with colleagues in the UK around research to try to get a better test. Currently, our skin test has an efficacy of 80%, which means one in every five animals that test negative in a bovine TB test will actually be positive but undetected. The gamma interferon testing is the blood test and it is different. When that is layered on with the skin test, the efficacy is increased to over 90%. If we just do the blood test on its own, it is not perfect either because it does show a certain number of false positives, so there will be a larger number of cattle testing positive than actually have it. Layering the two tests in high-risk scenarios is the right thing to do. There is no need for a blood test to be done on an animal that has tested positive in a skin test. If an animal tests positive in a skin test, it has it. Our problem with the skin test is that it misses some animals. The blood test is the opposite. Therefore, it is absolutely right, based on science, that the 26 reactors that went down in the skin test are the reactors in that space.

In relation to the payments and compensation, there are limits there. Those compensation limits were increased during negotiations with key stakeholders last year but there are limits. We have seen the increase in the price of cattle. I do not know what breed they are.

They are Friesians.

Are they purebred?

Yes.

They are purebred.

Yes, highly bred.

Okay, the Deputy and I might talk about this specific case afterwards. I am happy to follow up on the specifics of that. In general terms, the increased money I got in the budget for next year - this is not about the Estimates for this year - I am trying to make up for the provision whereby there was a €73 million provision made in last year's budget for this year. That €73 million was not adequate. By September of this year, through compensation and other measures, I had exceeded €80 million in expenditure. We had moved money around so I need this Supplementary Estimate to fill that gap.

In regard to the money that has been allocated for me to implement my new bovine TB plan for next year, I got an additional €85 million approved into my fund to have €157 million to deal with bovine TB next year. It is a colossal sum of money. That was all on the contingency of my new bovine TB plan, which has five pillars and 30 clear actions and is all about measures that reduce the spread of this disease. While compensation is really important to the farmers impacted, it does not do anything to stop the spread of the disease. We need to have fewer farmers having this, less stress, less cost on them and then less of a draw on this. That is what the measures of this-----

I thank the Minister but I need to move on to Deputy Kenny.

What about the other question I asked about leaving cows in the yard for five or six weeks?

I would absolutely want to see cattle collected much earlier than five or six weeks. I know the stress there is if you are milking cows and you have to keep milking them and keep the milk separate. I will talk to the Deputy about the individual case afterwards and check with my local regional veterinary office, RVO, in that area. I do not know the circumstances of that particular case but at certain times there can be a period where there are a lot of reactors in an area at a given time.

The Minister can follow up with the Deputy later.

We would want to remove those animals from that situation. It is a very stressful situation. I can talk to the Deputy about the specifics of the case after.

The farmer was also asking for a printout from the Department detailing the cows that were infected and at what rate, and he will not get that. He has asked for it already and will not get it.

I do not know about that but I will follow up with the chief veterinary officer and see about that.

I thank the Minister.

Thank you. Deputy Kenny is next.

I thank the Chair, and the Minister for his opening statement. There are a number of things that I want to go into and TB is clearly one of them. We are at a stage in this country where it is threatening both our dairy and beef sectors big time. Disease, in many countries, has caused huge scarcity and affected prices worldwide. We are at a stage here where TB could be the problem in that regard that we may have in this country and we have to take it very seriously. I agree with the point about the compensation farmers are getting. For many of them, when they get that compensation, they have to go out and try to replace the animals and it is not enough to do that. That is what we hear all over the place. Most public representatives will have heard that, but the Minister has spoken about TB and I do not want to dwell on it too much.

I want to ask about the issue in regard to ACRES. The Minister mentioned he is putting an additional €35 million into it. I think that in the budget €20 million was spoken about. From reading the Minister's opening statement, I thought the overall amount over the period had stayed stagnant. Is this money that was left unspent up to now, or where is this money coming from?

I thank the Deputy for those points. To be clear, this is a Supplementary Estimate for the rest of this year, money I need to meet commitments for 2025. The recent budget announcement is for 2026. In the recent budget, we saw an increase in the allocation for ACRES from €260 million to €280 million for 2026. What I am doing here is receiving, with the consent of the committee and the Houses of the Oireachtas, a Supplementary Estimate that will top up the money I need to make the payment commitments before the end of this year. That is €35 million for ACRES. The allocation under programme B (14) was €260 million and now we are going to €295 million, so it is a €35 million increase for ACRES. As I outlined, there has been a national flow of payments. The Deputy is well aware of the challenges we had in ACRES. When I came to this role on 23 January, 14,500 farmers had met their contractual obligations and because of significant challenges with the new system, a number of farmers - 2,700 from 2023 and the remainder from 2024 - were unpaid.

I was determined to address that issue. I went down to Wexford, met the officials and saw first-hand where the challenges were. There were not regular payment runs happening at that time. I asked all colleagues here on this committee - I was before this committee answering questions on the matter - and others for a little patience to address these issues and the commitment I gave was that the issues, when resolved, would be fixed permanently and we would not have that issue again in other years.

I commend everybody involved. I commend the farmers for their patience. It should not have happened. I apologised to them previously for that. They signed up to a scheme in good faith.

I thank colleagues here for bringing a number of individual cases to me that helped paint a picture of the challenges and the distresses. We all took those phone calls but departmental officials took a lot of those phone calls, too, and had to deal with those stressed farmers and the frustrating process. We have got on top of that now. We have got ourselves to a point where 99.6% of 2023 participants in the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, have been paid.

On the non-productive investments, what is happening? There is still a backlog. Some farmers have lost faith that they are being done.

The 2024 advance has been paid to 99.2% of participants. I will go back to those figures. The following is what we have had in recent weeks. Last week, 34,000 farmers were paid under tranche 1. This week will see 8,000 paid. Over the next few weeks, there will be €1.4 million in non-productive investments, NPIs, paid out to the ACRES co-operation measures. Obviously, there are more payments to be processed in the coming weeks.

I appreciate all of that. It is just that it has been the scheme that farmers have had the most difficulty with in the last period of time.

The Minister made an announcement today about the organics and movement on same. I see there is additional money in organics and also additional money in tillage. In my part of the world, quite a number of farmers are involved in organics. In fact, we have one of the few marts in the country that has organic sales, in Drumshanbo mart. For people to stay in it, they need to have continued investment. There is a sense that this scheme is going to be more about tillage than anything else. I would like a commitment that there is going to be a continued emphasis on assisting farmers across all sectors who want to get into organics and that money will be in place for them.

Sorry, it took me a minute to stay with the Deputy because my head was in the Supplementary Estimates, which is the additional money I need to see out the end of the year.

The point around organics and tillage is in relation to next year's budget. I will address that in a moment.

I would make the point in relation to ACRES that I understand the frustration there has been. My biggest frustration has been that every time I have gone to talk about ACRES, I have had to deal with the issue of people not being paid, and understandably so. That meant we failed to be able to recognise that almost €700 million had been paid out - nearly three quarters of a billion euro - to farmers in this country who were taking on additional measures around the environment. I refer to 9,000 km of enhanced measures around our waterways, 2,000 km of hedgerows being planted and improved biodiversity measures. Since 2023, almost three quarters of a billion euro has been paid to farmers to implement those measures. That is a real success story. That is why I put a huge focus this year on fixing the challenges in the processing of payments in ACRES and getting confidence back in that sector so that we can talk about the positives that our farmers are doing in that regard.

The Deputy's points around organics and tillage relate to this year's recent budget announcement for 2026. As a Government, we said that we were not continuing the one-off measures. The last tillage and horticulture support scheme was a one-off measure, so I started my budget negotiations with not having a ring-fenced figure for a tillage support scheme. Our tillage sector is under a very significant challenge, so I managed to secure €50 million for next year in the budget. That will include existing measures, such as straw incorporation and the protein aid scheme, but also a €30 million fund for a new tillage support scheme. I have said clearly that does not mean I am doing the same scheme as last year, which was a blanket payment for every hectare that had seed put in the ground. I have modelling being carried out at present. I am going to sit down with the farm organisations in the coming weeks and engage with them as to what the design of that new scheme will look like because there are decisions to be made about, for example, what crops you pay it on, who we are trying to target, what scale of farm we are trying to target, and do we pay a flat rate on every hectare, cap it or have a degressive payment after a certain amount. We need to be clear on who we are trying to target because the decisions we make will determine what the price is per hectare that we can pay to support farmers. We know the tillage sector is an area that has had significant challenges and I want to support it in that regard.

Finally, on the Deputy's point around organics, I want to continue to support the organics sector. Obviously, this is a constrained budget, even though I have had a 9% increase. The Deputy will see the challenges that I have on the TB side. I have had commitments on tillage and beyond. I want to continue to support the organics sector but it has been clear to me that, whatever about the challenges with organics in terms of beef, lamb and beyond, there is a shortage of organic feed for them. Organic tillage is the key critical area and that is where most of my focus is on in terms of supporting the sector for 2026.

I just want to mention the sheep welfare and beef welfare schemes as well. There have been cuts to the amount of money they are receiving.

There have not been.

I need to bring in-----

They are going from €13 per head to €11.50 a head.

They are going up 44%. I can come back. A charge is being made now. When I negotiate a budget, I negotiate a whole headline figure, which is what I did for next year. In terms of the allocation for last year, the total amount of money granted to my Department from the Department of public expenditure for livestock schemes was €113 million. For 2025, it is €131 million. That is nearly an €18 million increase. Figures were mentioned per head as to what the hope would be for those schemes but I have been clear on this. I have to deal with a global figure. I do not control how many farmers will apply for those schemes and there are decisions that have to be made when schemes have more applications than they had previously or more than people expected. One of the reasons they had more applications than people expected was because it was late when the details of previous schemes were announced. Into June, farmers had made on-farm decisions not knowing what the criteria would be for beef and sheep schemes. I felt that was wrong. I wanted to rectify that. I wanted to open it up earlier. I also wanted clear criteria that were user-friendly for our farmers because not enough beef and sheep farmers were going into these schemes; they were voting with their feet. I opened it much earlier, on 22 April, and the terms and conditions we were able to design around that were user-friendly for farmers. What happened was that more farmers applied. Sheep farmers are getting €11.50 per head compared to €8 last year. It is an increase. The Deputy is right that it is not the €13 they had hoped for but I do not control how many apply for it.

The numbers of sheep and beef animals in the country are going down.

Thank you.

The amount of people applying for the schemes has gone up.

It is not a per farmer payment, but per animal.

We need to give Deputy Cooney an opportunity.

I thank the Minister for his presentation. I compliment him on the fantastic work he has done in the past as regards the ACRES payments. We are well aware the shambles there was with the ACRES payments and the way the farmers were treated in this country but, in fairness, when the Minister took over the role, he took on his duties and got the problem sorted.

Returning to some of the funding that has been invested in ACRES, the Minister said, "The additional €35 million for ACRES will be used to meet outstanding 2023 and 2024 liabilities, and to make advance payments to 2025". Have we still some unpaid farmers in the 2023 and 2024 schemes?

Obviously, I will not go over the history of the challenges we had in the past but I thank the Deputy for his comments on that. As of today, 99.6% of farmers from 2023 have been resolved. The remainder is only 0.4%. We still have a couple of farmers outstanding from the green low-carbon, agri-environment scheme, GLAS. It is the nature of schemes. Individual things can happen on individual farms and in farm settings that mean not every case gets resolved. Effectively, all 2023 ACRES farmers have been paid with the exception of 0.4%. For the 2024 advance payments, 99.2% of the payments have been made, and 98.2% of the balancing payments for 2024 have been made. As of now, 2025 advance payments are at 77.7%.

As of now. That is for-----

Exactly.

-----2024.

Last week, we paid 34,000 farmers for tranche 1 of ACRES. This week, we are making an additional 8,000 payments. We are now in a rolling system of payments and we will have more payments in the coming weeks.

When would the Minister hope to have the final payments done? Is he hoping to have them done within 2025?

We have commitments under the farmers' charter of hitting 90% of the payments in those regards. It is about the flow of money. Obviously, having this additional money is a critical part of that but in certain instances, we need farmers to come back with information that they have on their side and that is outstanding. If we have a query with a farmer around a partnership or some question of eligibility to a scheme, we need them to come back with that information. We are in that regular payment run now and this is quite reflective of what other schemes would be.

We are back to the normal cycle of payments.

We operate as a country on an annual budget from 1 January to end of December, but Europe operates from 16 October to 15 October the following year. That means the earliest date we can make advance payments is 16 October. That is when we start making those payments. We are ahead of all other European countries in terms of making advance payments to farmers as early as we possibly can for the following year. I look forward to continuing to be able to do that.

In fairness, it is a major success because of the great work the Minister has put in to try to solve the problems that have been there in the past.

Going back to the TB programme, I note the Minister said in the region of €135 million will be spent on TB in 2025. Compensation to farmers for their animals is a big concern. I know it had been raised here by two Oireachtas Members already. Can anything be done on the payments to farmers from the Department?

I thank Deputy Cooney for raising that point. From attending the public meeting the Deputy held with farmers in Clare, I know that bovine TB is a big scourge and concern for beef farmers in the county, as it is in so many parts of the country. The reason we are here tonight is to try to fill the gap caused by the expenditure pressures I have for the remainder of this year. One area in which I have that pressure is in bovine TB. In last year's budget, €73 million was allocated to deal with bovine TB for this year. I surpassed that figure in the summer. By September, we were at well over €80 million, so we estimate we will need the additional money I am seeking in the Supplementary Estimate. I am seeking the committee's approval because we believe our total expenditure will be about €136 million for 2025. That is a colossal figure when we consider that the total annual cost in 2019 was €37.5 million. That tells us why we need the new step-change approach I have introduced, under which we need to identify the reactors earlier.

In the context of needing that level of expenditure, the increase in funding I secured in my budget negotiations for bovine TB next year was all about targeting the money at eradicating the disease. The five pillars the committee heard me talking about, with 30 different actions, were clearly focused on measures to address the issues of wildlife, cattle transmission, residual transmission left behind in high-risk breakdowns, increasing by 30% investment in the area of wildlife, and introducing between 80,000 and 90,000 blood tests - the gamma interferon tests - for the high-risk herds that have a breakdown of three or more. In that context, while this is a huge amount of money, there is no spare money to spend. The caps I inherited are in place. The compensation measures were renegotiated in recent years, and I keep those under active review, but, right now, I do not have spare capacity. I am here today looking for additional money to see me out to the end of the year, such is the draw on my budget for bovine TB. In that context, I cannot increase the compensation rates. I keep a close eye on this issue and I am mindful of the stress farmers who have bovine TB breakdowns are experiencing.

My ambition here is to make an intervention and take a new approach to bovine TB that gives farmers who are currently in restriction a clear roadmap out of it. That is a big challenge. Farmers in lockdown have to have two clear tests. They might pass the first one and have a reactor in the second one. There are farmers who are three or four years into that cycle of perpetual breakdowns and they do not see light at the end of the tunnel. This new plan will give them a focus for how to get out of this. Those farmers who own the 94% of herds that were not affected and who stay awake at night the night before the annual herd test will have more certainty, clarity and reassurance that they will not be affected by this into the future.

I also see the prevention of the spread of TB as important. In fairness, the Minister has taken that very much on board and probably has a lot of money invested in it.

It is a huge amount. I am looking for additional funding to cover total expenditure on a bovine TB eradication programme for 2025 of €136 million. The budget negotiations I have just come out of got an additional €85 million of new money into my budget for 2026 and that will have a total cost of €157 million for next year.

I thank the Minister.

I ask Mr. Conroy to get some figures for me. How much did the Department get from the carbon tax in the past year? What is the total amount it has got from that tax?

Everyone welcomes the money for TB. The Minister has to put in more money. That is understandable. However, it is worrying to see the statement that since 2023, the factories have not increased the price or value of cattle. That puts more pressure on the Department. Did the Minister go to the North to see if he could get cattle down across the Border and see if he could get a better price? At the price cattle are getting, and if they are getting it since 2023, something looks ferociously bad.

For 2026, the Minister will have to sit down with the farmer organisations because a lot of people are losing €700, €800, €900, €1,000, €3,000 or €4,000 if an animal goes down with TB. If they are a pedigree heifer and they are not in calf, they could go at €6,000 or €7,000, but €3,000 is the price. If you have a good bullock now, you could come into €3,000, €3,500 or €3,600 and then there is the springer cow where she is in the suckler herd. I know the Minister is under pressure and I understand the issue this year but I ask him to take that observation on that.

On ACRES, the Minister said this money is for 2023 and 2024. Would anyone who was accounting at the beginning of last year not have put that in already?

No, I did not say it was for that.

It is written here that it is for 2023-24.

No, and not to contradict the Deputy, as of now, we have 99.6% of 2023-----

On the Minister's statement, it says it is for 2023-24.

It incorporates payments in 2023 and 2024, but the additional €35 million I need to bring the figure up to €295 million for this year is to continue making the advance payments I started last week. There were 34,000 farmers who got advance-----

The Minister had accounted for 2023 and 2024 moneys at the beginning of the year.

It is all this year's budget. As I fix those problems, those-----

It will have been accounted for earlier in the year.

Absolutely, but it is all out of the one pot. There was €260 million allocated in last year's budget for ACRES. I need €295 million, so that is what the other €35 million is for.

I note the Minister referred to advance payments. With the second or final piece the farmer gets in ACRES, is there an accountancy done for that now? Is there money there for that or has that been kicked until January? It is clearance of the second part of the payment. The Minister gave the first one and I compliment Jack Nolan and whoever else is with him down there on the work they have done on ACRES. A lot of farmers are being paid. However, there is a second part to it, the 15%. The Minister's document refers to the advance payment for 2025.

As we are under the new EU budget year, which begins on 16 October, under the rules, we can pay from 16 October onwards advance payments for 2025. They start being issued at this time of the year and then, depending on the farmers who need to get back to us for one reason or another, those payments continue to be rolled. The balancing payment is paid in March and April of every year. The advance payments for 2024, as I said, have been paid out to 99.2% of farmers and the balancing payment for 2024 has been paid to 98.2% of farmers. Balancing payments for 2025 are paid retrospectively after the year. They are not due until next April or May and that is when farmers would expect to get those balances. The balancing payment is the lesser part of it. The greater amount is the advance payment.

It was sickening to see the forgotten farmer we have all talked about for years. There was a €5 million budget but there only looks to be €2.25 million of it going out. Does that not show the way it is being handled is preventing many young farmers from not getting it? That is the figure - €2.25 million.

Yes, it is. I will come back to the Deputy's earlier questions and make that point also. I have that here too.

First, the Deputy asked a question about the carbon tax. That allocation is €143 million, the vast majority of which is going towards ACRES payments.

The agricultural sector gets €143 million out of about €900 million. Would that be fair to say?

It is €143 million for us this year anyway. I am not sure of the total figure. The Deputy might have to check that with the Department of Finance.

In terms of the Deputy's point around bovine TB and compensation costs, this is a dynamic disease.

We have our best modelling and our best guesstimates for how we think that disease will operate and where it will spike. We try to roll it out as best we can. We know the new measures we are going to take will actually find an increased number of reactors next year. We need it to. Our modelling tells us we will have 62,000 reactors next year with the new approach. That is really important.

What I do not know about next year is what the price of beef is going to be. For me to make commitments now around changing that compensation, while I understand the stress, the concern and the pressure on farmers, I do not have the capacity-----

I am not talking about the Minister; I am talking about the factory price. If we look at the factory price and what they are giving, the Minister is saying that since 2023 they have not gone up. Something is seriously wrong there that needs to be looked at.

Can we move on to the forgotten farmer?

I will. As part of the overall approach to bovine TB we are looking, root and branch, at every element of it, including the role of the factories as well.

On the second point of ACRES, I made the point about April for the balance of payments. On the long established young farmers' scheme, or forgotten farmer scheme as it is known, a maximum of €5 million was allocated in last year's budget towards it, not knowing how many people would qualify, how many people would apply-----

We know the numbers. We know from the last time who could not qualify-----

We do-----

-----because of the set-up.

We are still going through the applications now but we anticipate that the number of farmers that qualify for this-----

Will the Minister have a re-look at the wages in the criteria?

No. This is a scheme based on a commitment from a previous Minister in a previous time under previous criteria. There was a commitment made and an allocation made in the budget last year so I cannot open that back up this year for the people who meet the criteria that was set down then. There is a time to draw a line under it. I did not set the amount that is here. I will make the point in relation to the forgotten farmer, that those who qualify will be paid. They will be paid in December the full amount of €5,000 before the end of this year.

I have one final question. How many staff has the Minister in the Department? The administration figure looks to be down a good bit. What is the reason? Is there as many staff this year as last year?

I do not want to give the Deputy the wrong figure, but the most recent up-to-date figure is 4,054 staff.

What was it last year?

If fluctuates in and around the 4,000 mark.

Was it 4,700?

Like every other sector of society, filling gaps and vacancies is a challenge when the economy is at full employment. We also see efficiencies there. Contractors are used for outside projects as well. However, in terms of whole-time equivalents-----

Is there fewer staff in the Department this year than last year?

-----there is a saving. There is more staff but the admin budget is a saving this year.

I thank the Minister. I call Deputy Aird.

There is a sanctioned number from the Department of public expenditure-----

Sorry we must-----

I am sorry but I need to get this on the record. There is a sanctioned number from the Department of public expenditure of 4,387. This is the sanctioned number of staff and we have less than that.

So we are some 200 short.

Most of the speakers have said what I wanted to say. There is a difference in this between the Minister and me. He and I know this. That is what debate is about and that is what representing farmers is about. Obviously we are passing the figures here this evening, but do we have to accept now that there is not going to be an increase in the €3,000? It is difficult for the farmers out there who are suffering at the moment if they have an animal that is worth more than €3,000. There is a lot of them and more are coming to me again now because they thought the price of beef would be suppressed, but it has not and, in fact, it is static at the moment and it is not going down. When a person values your animal at €3,500, €4,000 or €4,500 and you get a maximum of €3,000 it is difficult for farmers. I do not know what the likes of my father's generation would do because if you valued something and you did not pay him you would know it pretty quickly, I can tell you that. There is no point in saying that you would not.

I have not many of them but they are on to me. It is the sheep people in my area. Deputies will talk about their other areas as well. Because it was oversubscribed, it is less than it was last year, and when you give somebody something less, they are telling me that they are down-----

It is less than they anticipated for this year but it is more than last year. I will explain it-----

Per head for the ewes.

It is over a 40% increase on last year. Last year they got €8 per ewe, this year they got €11.50. They anticipated-----

A sum of €13.

They anticipated €13-----

But hold on-----

-----but they are getting €3.50 a head more.

I am not going to have a row: it is late. They understood that they were getting €13 but it was oversubscribed so it dropped down. The bottom line is to please look at what happened in the past. We all should try and learn. The very same thing happened with the suckler. I am tired saying it. We slaughtered over 200,000 and they are gone. They will not be back. Those farmers are gone as well. Most of them went into dairying. The very same thing will happen to sheep farmers. Of the people who I know in it, they are reducing and they are not going to land ewe this year. A couple of people have said, "No more". This is bad so we need to learn. This is what the suckler farmers told us but we did not heed them and now they are gone. I am just afraid it will go the same way with the sheep. I know it from driving around my own county, I would say "Jesus there are no sheep now", because I do not see them out in the fields. I just wanted to make that point and it is important that I make the point.

I batted strongly for tillage because I was fearful for the sector as well. It is more fearful I am getting now because a whole lot of lads are telling me they are not sowing any spring barley this year. They are looking at their options for what they are going to do. We have had so many meetings in here about incineration and renewable energy, and whatever is going to pay them to grow whatever crops that suits them to feed that. This is the talk out there. I do not like that. I will be straight with the Minister. Farming runs in my veins and the land runs in my veins. All farmers want is a reasonable return and a wage, the same as everybody else, but the tillage sector is not getting that and has not a hope of getting that. I am of the opinion now that we did not have the increase. We have got to be fair to people. They are saying to me that they got €32.5 million last year: €10 million for the protein aid and we got €10 million for the straw top-up. The €10 million is still there for the straw top-up and the €10 million is still there for the protein, but we are down €2.5 million to €30 million for it.

The only way out is to try and support them and to keep them in there on what I would call a lifeline: sit down and start at the bottom, take in everything the farmer has and whether he or she has other investments in the yard or whatever. The Minister has to look at it because I am not going to put a figure on it. Let us say, for example, it is the first 50 acres, 75 acres or 100 acres. There has to be a pillar whereby we try and keep fairness in the system for the smaller grower to the larger grower. I do not know whether this is true or not, the Minister might know, but it was reported that somebody, one person, would have drawn maybe north of €100,000 last year. There is no need for that.

I ask the Minister to try and give as much as he can to the smaller growers on an acreage basis to encourage them to put seeds in the ground. That is where we are going to end up again if what happened when the previous Minister was there happens again. He had to give a budget in the spring because there was no-one sowing. That is how it came about at that time. I know the current Minister faces that problems now, but that is what happens if people do not get an adequate compensation. The only thing that we can do now is the bigger lads are going to get less and the smaller lads are going to be brought up a bit. That is the only thing we can do when we do not have extra money. That is just my tuppenceworth.

I thank the Deputy. There are a few points there. I completely take on board his point about the stress and the strain of bovine TB, but just a reminder of why I am here tonight discussing the Supplementary Estimate for this year. It is a supplementary budget I need because in last year's budget, €73 million was set aside to deal with bovine TB this year-----

I understand that was last year's budget.

I need €136 million. That is at current compensation rates. That is not with extra compensation rates-----

Why is-----

I did not interrupt the Deputy-----

If my cows were taken - it is my time-----

Does the Deputy want an answer or not?

The Minister can give me the answer. If my cows were taken today out on a lorry and down the lane, when does he think I should get paid for them?

The Deputy should get paid for them as soon as he can.

Yes, but when is as soon as I can?

As soon as possible. My point is-----

No, I am only asking because everybody is ringing me saying, "A month is gone by and every day I am not paid". I am only-----

Why does the Deputy think I am here? I am telling him there was €73 million-----

If we give the Minister this supplementary budget tonight-----

Will the Deputy let me make this point? There was €73 million set aside in last year's budget for all of this year.

By September, we were into €80 million. We were moving money around the Department. That is why I am here - that is why I need this.

You cannot blame the farmer for that.

I am not blaming the farmer; I am here fixing the problem. That is what I am trying to do.

That is why I am just asking-----

I did not negotiate last year's budget. I am telling the Deputy that €157 million is what I need next year. I have got that for next year. We will not have-----

We are going to give it to the Minister.

That is a different thing for now.

We had a supplementary meeting last July.

I am making the point that what I need for next year, I have set aside for next year. I hope not to be in the position where I need that next year. For this year, I am fixing that. I am here tonight looking for €53 million extra to clear the commitments we have.

We will give the Minister the money.

I accept that but that is on current compensation rates.

When will the farmers get the money?

They will be paid this year. That is why we are here going through this process. I am in the Seanad tomorrow and in the Dáil next week. If everybody approves, we will get that Supplementary Estimate into the account.

I thank the Minister and officials for coming in. I want to speak about sheep farmers. A number of them across Mayo, the west and the country are concerned and disappointed that they were promised €13 a ewe and that is down to €11.50 now, I think. Was there a miscalculation in the Department? Where did the problem arise? Were the tallies wrong on the Department's side? Why was there no increased allocation, given there was increased demand, it appears, for the scheme, as well as inflation and welfare costs?

There is more money, not less, in the sheep welfare scheme as a total overall figure. When I negotiated my first budget in recent months, I was not negotiating it on a per head basis. I was negotiating a global figure for livestock to be able to support those sectors. In the budget negotiations last year, for 2025, there was an estimate taken of how many people would apply for the scheme. The figure of €13 per head was in it for that reason. That is not how you negotiate; you negotiate an overall figure.

I made the point earlier that the way this worked in the past was that on-farm decisions were made before the scheme's details were published, generally in June. It was always too late, so I was determined to address that and get clarity earlier. I sat down with officials and designed a scheme that was as user-friendly as possible because I was very upset that too many sheep farmers were not availing of the sheep welfare scheme and too many beef farmers were not entering the scheme because of the terms and conditions and price being paid. I ensured the scheme, while there needed to be additional conditionality due to the costs incurred-income forgone model, was as user-friendly as possible and communicated earlier to farmers. That was communicated on 22 April - much earlier - this year. That means more farmers applied this year and they are getting more money than they got last year. I understand their expectation was €13 a ewe but this year, they are getting €11.50 and last year, if there were in it, they got €8. They are getting €3.50 a ewe more.

Did the Department announce that they would get €13 a head?

As part of last year's announcement after the budget, there was per head figure put on it. I would not have done that. That was an estimate based on how many people would have applied.

The Department made a mistake in its figures, tallies and calculations based on expected demand.

No.

The Minister is saying it is a global figure but the Department-----

It is.

I appreciate that. The Department, it appears, made a mistake in quantifying the demand and, therefore, put out a figure of €13 a head for sheep farmers. Is that not the case? Now, the Minister has come back and said, "By the way, it is €11.50."

It was always the case-----

It was based on 300,000 fewer sheep, if you add it up.

It was always the case that that was a total amount. That total amount paid out will be based on how many people apply.

The Department should have told the farmers the first day.

What people could not allow for was how I designed the scheme, opened it up earlier, made it more user friendly and made it more attractive to farmers to apply for. While I have key priorities around trying to address the bovine TB issue, supporting our ACRES farmers and our tillage sector, I managed, for budget 2026, to continue to have €131.8 million for livestock as a global figure. In 2024, that was €113 million. There is an additional €18 million this year for livestock. Next year, that increased figure has been maintained.

When the Department comes out and says sheep farmers are getting €13 a head, it is not talking about global figures. I appreciate it was not the Minister who did that. However, the Department did not say that €13 was based on the figures and that, by the way, if more sheep farmers apply, the tallies would be made on that basis. That is my point. I would like to have seen, in recognition of what appears to be a miscalculation by the Department, these Revised Estimates have an uplift in relation to that.

I take the Deputy's point of view on board. Terms and conditions in these schemes are very clear that the payment rate is dependent on how many people apply. I had decisions to make. I could have made opposite decisions and paid this out to fewer farmers. I could have made the commitment of €13 a ewe but included ranking, which would have ruled some people out. To me, that felt wrong. It is better that every farmer who applied gets €11.50, which is €3.50 more than last year, rather than some farmers getting €13 and some getting nothing.

I want to ask about the forgotten farmers scheme. There was €5 million allocated and about half of that will be used in this budget, so 50% or thereabouts will be returned. I am not going to ask the Minister to change the criteria of the scheme but I will ask him to reopen it to allow farmers who missed the deadline to apply. There was a very short window of opportunity to apply. Farmers who attended my clinic said they missed the deadline and they were unaware of it. The money is available. The Minister has allocated it. Will he reopen that scheme and allow farmers who are eligible to avail of it?

The reason for the timeline around the opening of that scheme was so that we could meet our commitment to pay every farmer this year. We have had 1,200 applications. We are still processing them. We anticipate expenditure in this scheme will be around the figure in the Estimate. My commitment is to pay those farmers in this calendar year. If we were to open that up now, it would go into the next year. There is no money in next year's budget for the long-established young farmers scheme. This was a previous commitment. It has hung around for a long time. I opened it up at a time to make sure we could get the payments out this year. My clear commitment to those who applied and qualified is they will be paid in December.

The €5 million came from somewhere. That as the allocation or Estimate in the Minister's Department.

In last year's budget. There is no provision in next year's budget because this is the end of it.

There is a significant number of farmers, by the Department's own calculations, who did not apply and are potentially eligible.

No. That is not how it works. The Department had no way of knowing this time last year how many people would qualify. What happened in the earlier part of the year was the scheme was opened up for people who felt they qualified to express an interest to give us a ballpark figure. That €5 million was an indicative figure. We did not know if it would need more or less. It was a maximum. I have 80 different subheads. Money has to move around from all the different areas. It was an estimate to try to address the issue. I have addressed the issue this year.

Given that there is a budget available, will the Minister allow those who missed the deadline and are eligible to apply?

No, because that would go into next year. There is no budget provision for that next year. I made a commitment that I would address that issue once and for all this year. I opened it up to those applicants. We have them and that issue will be put to bed this year. Those farmers will be paid in December.

On TB, the scheme has not worked until now is because it has been very hit and miss. The money that has been spent was not fully a waste of time but in north Kilkenny, we have a lot of farmers whose herds went down with TB and the last time somebody was out to check badgers in the area was three years previously. You may as well have flushed money down the toilet. I have no problem with the Minister getting extra money for a TB scheme provided it is implemented properly and continued. We cannot have farmers devastated in north Kilkenny because TB has spread like wildfire and nobody has come to check badgers for X amount of time. We cannot have that. It has to be when sets are found - there are more and more in breeding season. It cannot be left for three years.

I have no problem with it once it is implemented properly. If it is implemented properly, it will save money down the road when it comes to compensation for farmers, not only in terms of cost but also when it comes to the mental well-being of farmers.

What Deputy Aird was passionately saying was that when a farmer goes down and the cattle are lying around in the yard and he or she is waiting for somebody to come out and assess the situation and decide how much they should be valued at, basically, you are talking about cattle that will be gone. They will not make any money. This is a headache for farmers. They are stressed out. They obviously do not want anything going wrong with their animals, but an empty shed makes no money. If the sheds are full, they have something to work on. They have something to take their mind off it. They do not have the money to restock. This has to be done faster. I hope that some of the extra funding for TB will be used to address the situation, bring extra staff in, get cattle assessed quicker and get the ball rolling in order that they can refill their sheds. I know it will not fix the problem, but at least it will ease the pain somewhat. If the scheme is implemented properly, there will hopefully be very few cases.

On ACRES payments, is there enough money to be paid out in 2026 or will we be back looking for more money? Is this an ongoing situation whereby the Department has to look for more money at this time every year?

Can I use some of the time to answer the Deputy's points? If she wants to ask more, I will not delay. We need a new approach to this. When I said what happened in the past was wrong, I would say the disease is acting differently now to how it was in the past. It is acting more dynamically. As Deputy Aird will tell you, I do not remember neighbours 30 or 40 years ago having 20, 30, 40 or 50 reactors in one go.

It is spreading more quickly.

The disease is acting differently. We are farming differently too, which we have to be honest about, particularly when it comes to our dairy herds. That is a contributory factor.

On the additional funding for the new approach to bovine TB, in the context of the five-pillar plan with 30 different actions in it, part of the money I need involves a 30% increase in investment in the area of wildlife and changing our approach to how we handle wildlife. In the past, when badgers were found, they were all vaccinated. We have managed to get a test that can get a result on a badger within ten minutes. If the badger tests positive, it is removed for its own sake, the sake of the other badgers in the sett and that of the cattle in the area. If it tests negative, it is vaccinated and let go. We will have preventative measures here. We know that badgers, in a time of distress to their sett, will move a significant distance for them of about 1 km. We have challenges when forests are felled, roads are built, lands are cleared and solar farms are constructed. It is upsetting badger setts and they are moving considerable distances. If those badgers are infected, then we have anecdotal stories of pockets of TB appearing in places where something like that has happened previously. Local farmers will attribute it to that movement.

With increased investment in the area of wildlife, we will go into areas before forests are felled, roads are built or big infrastructure projects happen, identify the setts, test the animals, vaccinate the ones that are healthy and remove those that are not. This will mean that when they move, the disease will not move with them. That kind of preventative approach is a big step change in respect of wildlife and will address the issue in large part. My approach is based on science. It is based on the fact that we do not have one test or solution that can fix this and eradicate it, but the layering of the different measures will help us to address this issue once and for all. It identifies wildlife as one of the three key contributors. Farmers will tell you that it is only the wildlife. There is more than that, including cattle-to-cattle transmission and residual transmission, which is dealt with under the other 30 points. I thank the Deputy for her constructive comments about bovine TB.

I received an additional allocation of €20 million in my budget for ACRES for next year. That brings the baseline figure up to €280 million from €260 million. This is a rolling scheme. It is a five-year scheme that has to be managed. By their nature, those schemes build up when it comes to costs later on. We had a very low expenditure which was much below profile at the start, because of the challenges in getting payments out. That is being addressed. If I can get more payments at the end of this year, that means I will not be not carrying it over into next year.

Does the vaccination or testing of badgers still take three people or is that system changing, where somebody spots it, then you have to wait for a vet and so on? Has that been narrowed down?

Has funding been set aside in respect of avian influenza or will that have to be sought at a later date?

We have 30 different subheads, and we move money around and try to do that. In the context of the three flock owners who have been impacted in Carlow, Meath and Monaghan, we have a structure in place whereby they can negotiate a compensation package based on set criteria. I would hope to be in a position to be able to pay them this year out of that budget. Should we continue to have instances of breakdown, the Department of public expenditure will work with me with regard to next year, but we hope to be able to avoid that.

The Minister will try to pull it out of somewhere.

That is great news.

What about staff to deal with badgers?

There is a 30% increase in resources, so that is an investment into staffing in that area. Some of it will be outsourced. Some of that detail still has to be worked through with regard to how we approach that. We have had tenders previously that farm relief services have been involved with it. We have 18 deer management units rolling out around the country. It is a broad spectrum approach but we have significant additional investment in that area and a step change in the approach to addressing the wildlife challenge.

I am not a member of the committee, but the Chair has kindly allowed me to sit in. It has been an interesting evening. Deputy Aird has just left. I was about to commend him. He was easy to listen to and he hit the nail on the head for many farmers. Deputy Lawless asked several questions about the national sheep welfare scheme. That has finally been clarified. It was the big question that we were all getting in our constituencies. I would have thought, in preparing the Estimate, that given there is now an undershot of €1.50 per ewe, certainly in the eyes of the farmer, though the Minister may see it differently, that there would be something in the Supplementary Estimate to ensure that farmers would get what they were all expecting.

I did not have provision to do that. I understand where farmers are coming from with the expectation about a certain element, but I am also glad that more farmers have signed up for these schemes this year. The truth is, whether it is sheep farmers or beef farmers, that there are more farmers in the scheme this year than was the case last year Those farmers will get more money. That is the factual situation. I have to manage that budget. When you negotiate with the Department of public expenditure regarding your budget, if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. You have to have certain priorities. I had clear priorities about addressing and properly funding my new approach to bovine TB, making sure we can address the challenges that I have continued to tackle all year regarding the ACRES payments and fixing those once and for all, supporting our tillage sector, which is really important, while at the same time not seeing any cut in the overall figure that goes to the livestock sector. I managed to meet all those criteria. Last year, for livestock, there was a global figure of €113 million. This year, it will be €131.8 million. Next year, it will be €131.8 million again.

I want to move on to programme B. The Minister referred to an additional €5.1 million for TAMS. I think tranche 10 has a cut-off date of 5 December or something like that. It is imminent in an event. I have been asking parliamentary questions lately because I think there are some glaring omissions in TAMS. Basic, stock-proof fencing is not covered under TAMS. If a beef farmer looks for fencing, they will be getting bovine electric. I would argue that this does not work in all instances, particularly in rural areas. You can get ones that will shoot voltage across a couple of hundred acres, which is fine, but many farmers increasingly find themselves with forestry alongside their lands, and Coillte no longer fences off its boundaries. It is fencing larger, commonage areas that are tricky. There is nothing better than a three-strand, stock-proof, barbed wire fence. It is nowhere in TAMS. I have asked repeated parliamentary questions. The first half of the reply says it is not happening and then the closing paragraph gives a glimmer of hope that things can be considered.

The other glaring omission is this. I am a suckler farmer, but I keep some goats too.

Goats were always recognised but since 2010 they have had to have a herd number and be tagged. The Department has made them very official animals on the farm holding, but in terms of all grant assistance, they are invisible. Goat fencing is the most expensive of all - sorry, deer fencing is probably more but that is even more niche again - but it is nowhere in TAMS. Farmers have to buy knotted wire, which, at present, sells for €370 per 50 m length and there is no grant assistance whatsoever, yet we are being encouraged to get more into these species. There is nothing in TAMS for them.

I thank Deputy Crowe for his points. I could fill my days having meetings with people on additional things that could be put in TAMS, such is its popularity and the desire to get extra measures in there. We have 400 items covered in TAMS as it is. It is a hugely popular scheme.

But not one item for goats and no stock-proof fencing for cattle.

If we wanted to spend the day talking about things that are not in TAMS, we could draw up a very long list as well. I can tell Deputy Crowe that there are 400 things in it and they are very popular. There is massive drawdown. I was very proud of my legacy as Minister of State getting a tranche of measures on farm safety and lot of Deputy Crowe's constituents will be interested in them with regard to animal handling facilities. We will be addressing-----

Will the Minister keep it under active consideration? I want to get another question in.

What I will say about TAMS in general is the response to the parliamentary question is right to say there is a glimmer of hope because I will have to make decisions next year on what a new CAP will look like and whether TAMS will continue. I absolutely think it should. It is the best thing we do in the Department. When we talk about issues such as generation renewal-----

My time is going to run out.

TAMS is really good but the budget is under massive pressure. I have to manage the TAMS budget I have from now out to the end of 2027. I will make the point that, in doing so, I have to make hard decisions now about who can qualify and what rate people get paid at.

I accept that but the Minister cannot have 400-----

Traditionally, previous tranches in TAMS had an average of 3,000 applications.

I want to get back in.

The last tranche had 6,100 applications.

I want to get back in.

I want to answer the question. There were 6,100 applications for the last tranche.

It has gone way off the answer.

I want to give Deputy Crowe a sense of the scale of TAMS.

I thank the Minister. It is not fair when 400 measures reflect certain sectors of agriculture and then one species on the farm has not one out of 400 measures.

I want to ask briefly about TB eradication. I am in an area in County Clare where there is a diagonal line drawn from Cratloe to Bridgetown. These lines exist in many counties where badgers are being caught, trapped and vaccinated. A huge amount of the budget is going into eradication but I do not see it working. It seems like a bottomless pit of money. In a little while, I will have to phone back a farmer who had a cow culled only for it to turn out in the laboratory that she did not have TB.

Careful now. I would say she did not have lesions but that does not mean she did not have TB.

He has been told she did not have TB.

No, not having lesions does not mean she did not have TB.

As Deputy Fitzmaurice said, nothing at the moment is compensating people, such are the prices.

In my limited time, I want to mention organics. The market is finally where we would want it to be. Prices in Sixmilebridge last weekend were around €5.90 per kilogram, which is good. I agree with others that it cannot be all about tillage. There has to be stability.

The IFA has made the point on payments, and recently my office helped a farmer through MABS, something I never thought I would see. He made the point that all of his payments were coming in December. He hopes the local contractors are decent and that he can pay for his oil, silage and slurry spreading. He can pay it all in December but what if this were not the case? It all seems to come together. A suggestion was made to the Minister on budget day for a slower release. I was a teacher and I got a teacher's salary every fortnight, but with farmers, it is all or nothing. They sell stock in the mart and they might not have weanlings to sell again for another nine months. It all comes together and there is no trickle down.

The Minister might just tell us what we are going to be doing on Mercosur. It is the other thing we are all being asked. I know it is a bit of a tangent but we are reading in newspapers that France and Poland are voting against it and Ireland has concerns. This is coming up before Christmas and we need to know.

Fair play to Deputy Crowe, he got a lot in there. One thing with regard to payments is that I remember being a student in Kildalton Agricultural College back in 1998 and we were warned as young farmers about big cheque confidence. We were told there would be cheques for cattle and for grain once or twice a year but they had to be managed and we were not to go off and buy a tractor with them and lose the head. It is a challenge for farmers to have to manage this. I would say that we pay out money as quickly as we can. We had challenges with ACRES and I have addressed them. I made the point earlier that the European budget year started on 16 October and we started issuing payments at that time to get them out.

The point I was making on TAMS - I apologise for cutting across Deputy Crowe but I really did want to make the point - was that we used to get 3,000 applications per tranche. This is also linked to the fact that beef farmers, sheep farmers and dairy farmers in particular have been making good money this year and they are investing in their farms. That is a good thing. We had 6,100 applications in the last tranche of TAMS and this puts huge pressure on the budget that has to be managed.

I hear what Deputy Crowe is saying. What I am doing on TAMS is that I will make decisions next year on its design, and I will open up a period of consultation on everything that is there. We should look at the things that are on the list as well as the many areas that are not on it and have a full review of it then, if we have a new TAMS as part of the next CAP. I take Deputy Crowe's point on board with regard to a sector not being covered but I would make the point that an awful lot of elements come into it.

To respond to Deputy Crowe's point on organics, we have a shortage of organic grain to feed to our organic animals. I have to manage within a constrained budget and the grain sector is the best place to target it. I was down with Flahavan's and saw what we are doing in that area. I am trying to manage the tillage element of it.

Deputy Crowe could probably not have finished on a point further away from what we are supposed to be doing here tonight than Mercosur.

There is a very good Cathaoirleach who allows a bit of latitude.

It comes under the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, as it is a trade deal. There is a significant agricultural element to it and it is a big concern for our farmers. I addressed a Private Members' motion in the Dáil last night, as committee members did also. What I have done in my time on the AGRIFISH Council, and at every meeting I have been at in Brussels, is to adhere to the programme for Government commitment to continue to work with like-minded countries that share our opposition and sensitivities to the issue of Mercosur. I continue to do this. As recently as last Monday, I met my counterparts from Italy and France.

I read the same reports. I read the comments attributed to President Macron when he was in Brazil at COP, which seemed to suggest France was changing its position. He made other comments a week later that seemed at variance with this. There is not clarity there. What is clear is that, for this to be blocked, it needs a minimum of four countries to come together that, combined, would have a minimum of 35% of the EU population.

It is going to be tricky.

If the larger countries with bigger populations fall away, that blocking minority will not be there. Other things are happening in the European Parliament at present with regard to legal instruments and intervention. We are still looking at the legal instrument and how it would impact on the broader issue. As to what will happen in the Parliament and whether it will come to a vote as quickly as is being pushed, I do not know. There have been plenty of false dawns about Mercosur in the past. It has been on the go for the past 25 years. I raise it at every AGRIFISH Council under the trade item. I have been very clear and open about it. I have worked with like-minded countries on these concerns and I will continue to do so.

What is the forestry budget for 2025? I do not see it in the documentation.

I was not packing up my gear and getting ready to go, but I did not think Deputy Fitzmaurice was coming in a second time. Forestry, under subhead B10, is just over €91 million.

Obviously, 8,000 ha is the target, so roughly a quarter of this will be reached, with 2,360 ha at present. Is there not a huge surplus of funds left?

The Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae, hopes to hit 3,000 ha this year. Whether we do or not-----

I hope he does.

We also have the ash dieback scheme.

I know that but it has a budget. I am asking-----

No, hold on, that is all under forestry.

If the aim is 8,000 ha per year for €90 million and we hit 3,000 ha or 4,000 ha, there must be 50% of the budget left.

Fair enough, we have a target of 8,000 ha but there is not much point in setting money aside for 8,000 ha if the system does not look like it will deliver it. What I am determined to do is to not leave money behind me if I can at all. In the context of a €2.3 billion budget, we will not end up with zero on 31 December, but it is about trying to have as little money there as possible. The money we have allocated towards forestry, which is on the capital side, is to cover the commitments for planting, to cover the-----

How much for planting?

It is a demand-led scheme, so it depends on how many people plant. To pay every farmer who plants forestry and goes into the scheme, and to pay those who have contractual commitments with us-----

Will the Minister have money left over out of it?

No, because we manage it in a way whereby we have the money set aside to pay those with whom we have contractual commitments. We also have money there that is, again, demand led in terms of the ash dieback scheme. It comes out of the same pot.

The Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae, and I have announced our desire to be able to support farmers affected by Storm Éowyn earlier in the year.

Last March, I had a conversation with the Minister about the papers where he announced that, by September or October, under TAMS, there would be roofs for sheds that got damaged by the storm. Where is that at?

My hope and intention were to have it at the back end of this year. It will be in the next tranche where we will have that ability, I hope-----

When is that tranche?

This one finishes on 8 or 9 December. I am going off the top of my head now on that. A fair bit of work had to be done on it. The Deputy raised the point wit me. A lot of the constituents and people who raised the issue with him had lost the roofs of their sheds, including the galvanised sheets, the purlins and the timbers, although the shed structures were sound. At that time, the TAMS payment was only for new structures.

That is right.

I pushed it with my officials on the points raised by the Deputy, and I was happy to do that. Others had raised the point with me, too, that there were instances where that did not need to be done, although we do need a structural engineer to be able to come in and make sure the safeguards are there. We cannot use taxpayers' money to put a roof on a shed that is not structurally sound, obviously. We just need to make sure the measures are there. This is a common-sense approach. If it is just the roof that is gone, it is just that roof replacement that can be applied for.

It is good to hear it is coming.

It is coming.

I have a very simple last question. I read this evening in an email, and the Minister might explain this to me, that the "council" in Europe had ratified the safeguards. What does that mean? Which council is it? Is it the Council of Ministers or what is it?

No, it is definitely not the Council of Ministers. The Deputy is talking about Mercosur.

Yes.

Mercosur does not come to the Council of agriculture ministers.

I know that. It goes to the foreign affairs ministers. I am asking-----

It goes to the foreign affairs and trade Councils.

The email said the "council" had ratified it this evening. What is this council?

There are a plethora of councils. I am not 100% sure, but it is definitely not on the agriculture side and it is not the Council of trade ministers.

All right. I did not know.

I think it has to do with the Parliament. I know it is about whether it blocks it going to a vote in December. There are a lot of different layers in Europe to that side of it. From my perspective, I continue to work with like-minded countries that share concerns in opposition to it.

Okay. I thank the Minister.

I call Deputy Paul Lawless.

I will not keep the Minister long because I know it is very late. I have one question for him in relation to the Agri-Food Regulator. I see here that the Agri-Food Regulator got €2 million or close to it this year. Is that right?

Yes, that is for 2025 and I have given it a significant increase for next year.

Yes. The functions of the Agri-Food Regulator are really important. I think that if we get this right, it might actually reduce, to a degree, the necessity for many schemes if farmers can get a fair price for their produce. This is what all farmers want and it is what we want, so I support it 100%. There are, though, significant issues. We had the committee in here. We have to give it the powers it was set up to do.

Absolutely.

If we do not do that, there is no point. I know the Minister's heart is in the right place. I urge him to address these issues and give the regulator the power to compel. If we do not do so, the regulator will be like a car with no fuel. It is built to go on a journey, it is staffed and it has €2 million. Effectively, though, it cannot move on the big issue, which is transparency in the marketplace.

I thank the Deputy for raising this point and giving me the opportunity to discuss it. I want to be really clear. I will not repeat the imagery the Deputy used for fear it is an idea that would land. I am not going to let that happen. It is not going to happen. The regulator has asked for more powers. I have obviously had to engage with the industry and others. We have to be very sensitive to this in terms of the regulatory burden on industry. We do not want to have an adverse effect that actually impacts the very farmers we are trying to help in terms of transparency. I cannot say what that transparency will shine a light on. It could be argued farmers are getting a fair price because they have got such a good price this year and the market dictates. Either way, the problem in this whole issue is the lack of transparency and the sense of fairness between the primary producer, the processor and the retailer.

From the perspective of giving the regulator extra powers, this is novel legislation and we are going further than other European countries have done. There is a really significant process around this where we have to make sure we do not have unintended consequences. We have to be very responsible in what we are doing. I have moved as swiftly as I can. I understand the board of the Agri-Food Regulator would like this to have been done yesterday, and so would I. Obviously, though, I have to work on it. It is a significant legal process that has things to go through and I have to safeguard all key stakeholders involved. I am doing that and I will continue to work on it.

I thank the Minister.

I thank the Deputies.

I thank the Minister and his officials. Go raibh maith agaibh. That concludes the committee's consideration of the 2025 Supplementary Estimates for Vote 30 – Agriculture, Food and the Marine. In accordance with Standing Orders, a message to this effect will be sent to the Clerk of the Dáil. On behalf of the committee, I thank the Minister and his officials for the huge range of answers given and the additional information that we took the opportunity to discuss as well.

I am happy to do so. It is always good to be here.

I thank the Minister. We will have him back again for the Common Agriculture Programme, CAP, discussion.

Absolutely.

We will pin down a date.

The CAP will dominate next year in terms of its design and what comes back to us on it, so we will have plenty to tease out together.

We will have the Minister back for the political contribution.

Yes, sure.