No apologies have been received. Members have the option of being physically present in the committee room or may join the meeting on Teams from their Leinster House offices. Members may not participate in a meeting from outside the parliamentary precincts. It is important to note that to participate in a division, although we are not expecting a vote on this, members must be physically present in the committee room. As it is an Estimate, it is not about decision-making but rather for information, so there will not be any vote on this.

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Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against a person or entity, by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

The meeting has been convened to debate a Supplementary Estimate for the public services: Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It was referred to the select committee by Dáil Éireann on 27 May 2026.

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Heydon, and his officials. I note he is accompanied by Mr. Gordon Conroy, assistant secretary, chief finance officer, finance and State bodies division, and Mr. Billy Baldwin, higher executive officer, finance division. As the Minister is the witness before the committee, questions should be directed to him. We will give the Minister the opportunity to go through the Estimate. We will have questions and answers afterwards.

It is great to be with committee members here this evening. I welcome the opportunity to appear before the committee today to discuss my Department’s 2026 Supplementary Estimate. Following the Government’s recent decision to introduce temporary and targeted measures to reduce fuel prices for households and businesses, my Department has been allocated €100 million to support the farming and fisheries sectors. Out of this, €85 million has been allocated to the farming sector and €15 million has been allocated for fisheries and aquaculture sectors. The level of funding allocated to my Department is in recognition of the exceptional pressure rising fuel costs are placing on our farmers, contractors and fishermen and fisherwomen.

My discussion with the committee today is in relation to the fuel support scheme for farmers, farm contractors and specialist farming sectors specifically the horticulture sector. My colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, will appear before the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs later this evening to discuss fuel supports for the fisheries and aquaculture sector. The fuel support scheme for farmers and farm contractors is an income support scheme aimed at those impacted by the sudden and unexpected increase in the cost of marked gas oil. I wanted to ensure support was directed to those impacted by the price increase and who are actively engaged in producing our food and managing our forests. My Department engaged with representative bodies prior to the introduction of the scheme and we designed a scheme that is straightforward, targeted and capable of getting money to farmers and farm contractors very quickly.

We have seen a strong response to the fuel income support scheme among farmers and contractors. The scheme opened on Wednesday, 6 May 2026. Over 32,000 applications had been received as of the extended closing date of 2 June. The income support payment will be equivalent to roughly 20 cent per litre for marked gas oil used by farmers and farm contractors, which was the indicative figure I gave all the way along as the best estimate in terms of where we would be at. The minimum level of payment is set at €100 in line with regular Department schemes. The maximum rate of payment will be dependent on the number of applications received but will not exceed the ceiling set under the EU Middle East crisis temporary state aid framework of €50,000. The total payment to be received by each applicant will be calculated once all claims have been submitted, checked and verified. They have been submitted; the checking and verification process is ongoing. Based on the applications received prior to the extension of the deadline, the average payment for farmers is approximately €650 while the average contractor will see a payment of more than €6,000. Larger contractors will potentially receive significantly higher supports. Payments will issue once all checks have been completed.

A separate fuel support scheme for specialist edible horticulture has also been developed within my Department. The total amount of funding made available for this scheme is €2 million, which is included in the overall €85 million budget allocated to the farming sector. Specialist horticulture growers have seen substantial increases in fuel costs over the past number of months, placing further pressure on a sector that has already endured significant increases in input costs over recent years. The support provided under this scheme will help to mitigate against additional fuel costs faced by growers, many of whom I met in recent weeks. Applicants actively engaged in the production of glasshouse high-wire crops like tomatoes and cucumbers, mushrooms, glasshouse-grown crops such as heated strawberries and hydroponically grown lettuce crops and herbs such as chillies will be eligible to apply for this scheme. The horticulture scheme opened on 1 June and will close on 24 June. Growers must be registered on my Department’s food business operator register and must have completed the 2025 horticulture census by the time of application.

Both schemes as outlined above will operate on the basis of one payment per applicant to cover the full five-month period, rather than monthly payments. Applicants under the fuel income support scheme for farmers and contractors were asked to supply their usage for the 12 months of 2025 based on receipted expenditure. Farm and forestry contractors must also be registered for VAT and tax compliant and must supply services for primary production of agricultural products, including forestry, on farm. That is the criteria we used to meet the definition of active farming activity. Applicants under the fuel support scheme for specialist edible horticulture will be required to upload a copy of the relevant fuel bills for each month covering the claim period of 1 January 2025 to 31 March 2026. Proof of payment of fuel bills is not required at the time the application form is submitted. However, applicants must retain such proof as it may be requested at a later date.

I believe these measures will significantly contribute to relieving the exceptional pressures felt across the agriculture sector. I recommend that they are supported by the committee. I welcome any questions or clarifications the Chair or members may have.

I thank the Minister. As he outlined, programme D, the seafood sector , Vote 30, is being dealt with by the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, at the fisheries committee later. It is not part of our remit today. The Minister is the witness so questions should be directed to him. He can call on the officials. There are a number of contributors.

I welcome the Minister. I thank his officials for coming. The Supplementary Estimate concerns programme B, farm sector supports and controls. It has gone from €1.152 billion to €1.237 billion. That is the €85 million. Is that right?

Yes.

The fuel support scheme is closed. How many applicants were there nationally?

As the Deputy will recall, the system for farmers applying was really straightforward - it was through the Agfood system which they are used to using. Similar to the tillage scheme earlier in the year, they went in under the heading "fuel income scheme support", ticked the box and the only figure they needed to put in was the amount of litres used at that time. They just need to have the receipts if audited afterwards. There were 32,000 applications from the farmers' side. There is a paper-based system because we never had a scheme for contractors before. They had to download an application form, which was very straightforward, off my Department's website, fill it out and provide their bank details as some farm contractors have never been on our system before. They had to attach receipts for the fuel they purchased or used throughout 2025. We had the exact figure for the applications that came through the Agfood system straight away but we are still working through the processing of the paper applications on the contractor side so I do not have the final figure.

I have been mindful all along that we pay people during this period and that they would not be waiting until after the end of July. I was also conscious that it was a very busy period in particular for contractors; during the last week before the deadline there was really good weather and they were flat out. I did not want to leave anyone behind. We granted an extension period of one week and as it happened the weather broke in that time. Interestingly, less than 1,000 extra applications came in during that last week. I am very happy we have not left anyone behind who really wanted or needed to apply. Those who did got in before that deadline, which was there so we could pay people sooner. We are working through that. We will get money out to them as soon as we can.

It is a significant scheme and significant money has gone into it. To separate the two, on the farming side, what will the average payout be?

Based on the figure before the extension, from the farmer side there could be an average payment of around €650 per farmer. Farmers who applied earlier were the heavier users - tillage farmers or smaller contractors who are not VAT registered. No contractor was left out. If they did not meet the criteria to apply as a contractor, they applied as a farmer and for those they would have been on the higher side of it. It is all based on usage.

Does the Minister have a rough idea of the average on the contractor side?

It will work out at around €6,000 or more but heavy users will obviously have used a lot more.

When we spoke originally, there was potentially going to be complicated cases where somebody had taken over a business, was starting out or employed more people. Roughly, as a percentage of the 32,000 or the total, were there many complex or non-traditional cases?

I do not have a figure but it is very small.

Good.

There are not many complex cases, but we are working through them. I always said that, whether it is a new-entrant contractor starting up for the first time or a new-entrant farmer, we would work with them on a case-by-case basis. Those cases generally did not fall out of the sky. If they are new - first time, in their own name - this year, they have probably taken over a business from someone who operated last year. They might have taken over from a parent or whatever. On a case-by-case basis, where we can prove the level of activity to some extent, we are working with them on that, but it was not a hugely onerous number.

I have one last question on this side of things. Roughly when will the money be back in these farmers' accounts? The payments are really welcome. Over 32,000 farmers are getting an average of €650, although that will vary. This is a big investment in the agri sector. Roughly how soon will it be before they get money back into their accounts?

I thank the Deputy for that. I commend the officials and everybody in the Department, who have worked really hard. This is a new scheme for contractors that we never had before, building on the commitments in the programme for Government around the working group for contractors and getting them established on a firm footing. I look forward to meetings with the Department of Finance and the contractors' associations, through the working group, before the autumn to work on the longer term elements of supports we can get for our contractor sector as well. In designing this, what I said all the way along was that I had to get that balance right between targeted and directed at those who had the greatest input cost, that is, the greatest usage, but also not so targeted and detailed that we tied ourselves up in knots with a really complex application system. The more complex and the more targeted you make it, and the more exactly perfect you want to make your scheme, the longer it will take. I think we got the balance right between that. My goal here always was to pay that money, as I said, during this period, not to have to wait until after the end of July. We are still working through the process of finalising the contractor paper base, but we are talking weeks in terms of payments, not months.

I have one last question before I finish. I thank the Minister for going to Kilkenny greyhound track for the official opening. It was a huge honour for the people of Kilkenny that the Minister for agriculture took the time to go there on a Friday evening. I think he will appreciate that it was a fantastic occasion. We will definitely get him down to Gowran Park racecourse as well, maybe for the Thyestes next year. In relation to C7 and the horse and greyhound fund, I know that last year and this year there is almost €100 million between the two. If there is any spare change in the Minister's Department, perhaps we could get additional funding for those two sectors, in particular, or even in the context of next year's budget. They are hugely important. There is huge employment in them. They are huge for rural Ireland. I will be imploring the Minister that any additional funding for the horse and greyhound industry will be most welcome.

Just on that final point, Kilkenny has done a fine job and there is a new stand there. I was delighted to be joined by our colleagues Deputies Aird and Newsome Drennan on a very special night there. There are 13 semi-State bodies under our remit in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and, historically, those bodies, including HRI and Rásaíocht Con Éireann, have seen year-on-year increases of in or around 3% over recent years. In my negotiations with the Minister, Deputy Chambers, I was constrained in terms of the uplift that could be provided to semi-States. The only semi-State under my remit that saw a significant percentage increase was the Agri-Food Regulator in terms of the additional staff and the additional powers I am providing to it. From Teagasc to Bord Bia to HRI to RCÉ, they all saw a revenue-flat budget. I asked them to do what the Minister, Deputy Chambers, asked me to do, which was to find efficiencies within the Department, to work within their own resources and to reprioritise. I know HRI was talking about prize money being a priority, so it needed to reprioritise within that. I have good meetings with HRI. I look forward to being able to increase funding to our semi-States in the future, all going well with the prudent management of the economy and with them showing that they have found those efficiencies too. That will be the start. We are at the start of very detailed budget negotiations for the autumn.

I thank the Minister for coming in. Before the extension, am I right in saying €21.5 million is what the 33,000 farmers would get, going by the figures the Minister is giving at €650?

Well, the figure of €650 comes from the indicative figure I gave at the start, which was 20 cent a litre. "Indicative" is the word. I am not being-----

But am I right in saying 33,000 farmers multiplied by the €650 on average that the Minister has referred to already would be about €21.5 million? Is that right?

Yes, and contractors at an average of €6,000, depending on-----

No. We will deal with the farmers first.

Yes. The figure of €650 on average per farmer comes from the indicative figure of 20 cent a litre. I am telling the committee clearly that 20 cent a litre may not be the final figure. If I can pay more, I will. I set an indicative figure to give a ballpark to people.

So the Department will spend in the budget its full budget on everyone, will it?

Within the flexibility I will have available to me, and with Department of public expenditure and reform approval. Obviously, there are state aid rules I have to meet.

Before the extension, the Minister was saying that contractors were about €6,000. Some were bigger. I understand that. How many did the Department have in when it did that figure?

They are paper based, so I do not have an exact figure.

But if the Department did an average, it would have to know.

Of the ones we had had-----

Yes, but how many were in at that stage? I know some came in after.

They came in in dribs and drabs. We have had a healthy number of applications from contractors. I am not putting a figure on it now because it might distort figures in the end. They are paper based, they have to be checked and verified, they are being gone through at the minute and-----

Will the Minister look at this? Early on, the peak months were referred to because, obviously, from October to Christmas or January, you will not do slurry, do silage or do all the heavy usage, which, when you average it out over the year, reduces the high peak figures of May, June, July-----

It depends who you are. If you are a tillage farmer, you are missing out on August and September, which are two busy months.

Yes, I know that, but I am talking about-----

There are winners and losers, no matter what you do.

-----three months of the big year sitting. What the Minister is saying to me is that if it is possible, he will try to give more. Is that what he is saying?

Yes. The phrase I have always used is "an indicative figure of 20 cent a litre". I had others on social media and even in person telling me it was going to be only 7 cent or 8 cent a litre by the time I-----

No-----

I was always clear that there was an element of estimation as to how many people would apply and what the levels of usage were. We know that 105 million litres of marked gas oil are used in the country every month. As regards how much of that was on the agriculture side, and the split of that between the contractor and the farmer, an element of that was estimation. I got my allocation and there was a very clear direction from the Department of public expenditure on that, and on how it is applied, so I have to have negotiations with it with regard to the final figure I can pay.

Is the Minister flexible in looking at the following? There is a certain threshold at which you have to be VAT registered. There are contractors that might have started off last year or whatever and they were under that threshold, because you can go up to a fairly high threshold without being registered for VAT and be a contractor.

It is €42,000, I think, is it not?

Yes. They cannot get into the scheme because they are not VAT registered and they may not be a farmer. I am asking-----

There would be very few of them.

Yes, I know, but is it fair to leave someone out? What I am asking the Minister is this: if there is a surplus, as he says, can he look at the criteria on that?

No. The scheme is closed to applications and they are in. You have to have criteria, no matter what your scheme is. Criteria for the difference between a farmer and a farm contractor-----

But there is no requirement for them to have a VAT number if they are not doing enough work. They are still an agricultural contractor. Does the Minister understand me? I am not saying that you give this to someone who is doing something totally different. They are an agricultural contractor by definition, they are working for a farmer, but they do not have that threshold. That is what I am saying. Just because I have a VAT number and you do not, I get it and you do not. That is what I am trying to say. Is there any way of looking at that?

As regards a contractor of any scale, €42,000 turnover in a year is not huge in terms of scale of work.

But a farmer will get it if he has a turnover of 1,500 litres in a year.

The farmer has identified farming activity. We have to have safeguards here to make sure that the work is happening on agricultural produce, and meets those criteria that fall under my Department's remit as well. I have not been approached by anybody who could not meet the criteria and-----

Could the Minister look at that?

But for whom would I be looking at it? Nobody has come to me. I have not-----

But there was no point in-----

Sorry. I have no doubt representative bodies would have been very quick to tell me if there were contractors who did not meet the criteria and could not apply as farmers-----

Because they would be smaller. They would not even be in some of these organisations.

And this is what the Deputy is asking about now so-----

I am asking the question. That is all I am doing.

As far as I am concerned, this scheme has covered those whom it was-----

I know it is not green diesel. I want to be clear on that before I ask this question. Cattle dealers were left out of the haulage thing - I refer to people who were buying cattle at the marts and hauling them - because they did not need a haulage licence. They are left out.

Is that being looked at? That is probably not the Department's area.

No, but I did make the case to the Department of Transport regarding haulage of cattle and horses, as well as thoroughbreds and others, and they did not meet that criteria. To be clear, the money we are approving here in the Supplementary Estimate is for our agriculture fuel support scheme, which is only for green diesel.

When does the Minister reckon the Department will be paying that?

Weeks.

Good. Okay, thank you.

I thank the Minister for his opening statement and the Estimates. The crucial one here relates to the timing and how long it is going to take for people to get money. I note in his opening statement the Minister said that people should keep their receipts from last year. Obviously, they have to keep them for the 12 months. Are there going to be many checks on them or what is the situation there? I note that in the Minister's budget administrative pay is not increased anywhere. I take it this is all being done from the present resources that have been given to administration and there are not any additional resources for that.

First, we want to get money out to people as quickly as we can, so we are not going to hold up payments in terms of the audit side of things. It is fair to say that a normal audit level for any EU scheme would be around 5%. We will mirror that.

It will be something of that nature.

Exactly. When auditing, you just have to be able to prove if you put down 2,000 litres on the Agfood system, that you can show a document for it. That is the kind of idea we are talking about here. As I said, this has been about a design that says, "We can get money out to people as quickly as possible". We are not going to have an onerous situation but we obviously have to protect the use of public money.

I take it common sense would apply. The Department knows a farmer's herd number and their activity by and large. The Department knows if they have only got 20 cows and they are all of a sudden using 50,000 litres of diesel, that would be out of kilter.

Exactly. This will also be risk-based audited. If someone with 10 ha is using a lot, they might be a contractor, which could well be the case, and that would very clearly be able to shown from their side.

That is fine. Deputy Fitzmaurice raised a point regarding the amount of money. There is €85 million, or €83 million when you take the horticulture sector out of it, with 32,000 or 33,000 farmers applying for it. One of the things people talked about in the beginning was the risk that if a large number of farmers were applying for it, it would end up being less than 20 cent per litre. It looks like that is not going to be the case. However, does that mean it could go in the opposite way as well in that farmers would be receiving in excess of 20 cents per litre? Does the Minister intend to spend the full €85 million?

I would like to. I will condition here that there are state-aid requirements for sanction.

I know that.

I have to engage with the Department of public expenditure on that-----

Very few would be reaching that.

-----but there is a reason I said indicative. I never explicitly said 20 cent. Some people put that on social media and in other ways to say it would be far less than 20 cent, but that is not my expectation.

When the Minister says it is not his expectation, would he say it could go as high as 30 cent?

I need to engage with the Department of public expenditure-----

It certainly looks like that-----

-----and I need to reflect on it. I would love to be able to do that.

Looking at the numbers the Minister is talking about here, with 32,000 farmers at an average of €1,000 per farmer, that would be €32 million.

There are two things there. There is sanction and there is also the state-aid rules. Under the de minimis system, there are also ceilings. We have to work within that. We do not want a scenario where I have given a farmer money and then have to take some back. We would not have that scenario there. With as much flexibility as I have, I want to direct that money to those who have applied.

Okay, that is fine.

I think everybody has asked any of the questions on what I wanted to know. I will ask something completely different. The Minister does not need to worry; if he does not have the answers, he can come back to me. There has been a lot of talk on deer hunting and things like that. A sum of €3.5 million put aside for a four-year Farm Relief Services, FRS-----

As part of TB-----

I hope that is on the Estimate. The Minister can take the question if he wishes, but our function is on the Estimate.

There is no point in my asking the same questions everybody else has already got the answers for.

That is no problem. What exactly is the question?

Where in the budget does that come from?

The new TB money.

It is coming out of the TB money.

I am trying to remember the name of the phrase - it is deer management units. They were tendered out to FRS and there are 16 of them all around the country. I am working purely off memory now.

Yes, the Minister is right.

The majority of the €157 million I got for the TB programme for 2026 went towards compensation for losses and all the rest. A significant amount of that was for extra resources into certain elements of wildlife control. The deer management units would have come in under that wildlife element.

That is great. As I said, the Minister does not have to answer me, but there is no point in my going over the same questions and answers-----

It is no problem.

-----as it is a waste of time.

As regards the refrigeration trucks, or whatever you want to call them, there were some that were possibly going to be mobile. Were any costings done for that, or did the Minister get any costings for it? It was alluded to in the conversations we were having that this had already been spoken about with the Department. The Minister can come back to me on that.

There were discussions on it, but I do not have the exact detail on where it is at to date. I will come back to the Deputy on that.

It is not funding that is already there. It has not been bought yet, so I presume it will be out of other funding.

Under Teddy Cashman's leadership, what was agreed for the deer management units was around personnel. It is paid on a per deer basis - I am nearly sure of that. When the animal is produced, it is like a bounty that is paid. The refrigeration element was not part of the initial ask and so it was not in the initial tender. The point was made, however, that these animals are in hard to reach areas and much of the time is taken by a hunter carrying the animal back.

It does not pay them transport costs.

Exactly. The point was made that a few strategically placed refrigeration units----

Or a mobile unit.

-----or a mobile unit could work. There were also some discussions with my team in the veterinary division. I am not sure where that is at right now, but I will check and get back to the Deputy.

On TB, when an animal is valued, they get the value and then they get the top-up payment from the Department. Where does that animal go in the food chain? Does it go into the food chain? It has TB and goes to slaughter but does not get slaughtered in the same place. It goes somewhere different. Animals are obviously not slaughtered together. They are valued differently, even though they are valued as if they were healthy animals. Where does that meat go? Does it just go into the food chain like everything else? The Department would not answer us.

It is segregated out. There are only a couple of facilities that have the licence to take reactors. I will get the Deputy more detail on that. I would need my veterinary team here with me.

We had these discussions recently. The Department would not answer where that meat goes. Does it go into the food chain the same as a healthy animal would?

I know they are segregated and, as I said, only a couple of places have the licensing to do that facility as it is quite a specialised area. I will get the Deputy more detail on that.

All I want to know is where that meat goes. Once it is slaughtered and packaged, does it go on the shelf?

The challenge with the bovine TB side in general is-----

We will stay with the overall questions and if there are policy questions, the Minister can come back with answers.

If I had my TB team with me here, I would be able to-----

The Minister can come back to me on it. That is absolutely fine.

The general point around bovine TB, and the reason you have reactors and you take them out, is because there is transmission from cattle to cattle or cattle to wildlife. They are spreading it around, so you need to extract that and take it out. That is the key focus for us - to get it out quicker. A large amount of my new action plan around TB interventions is about identifying it earlier. We have a lot of young maiden stock that leave dairy farms and go to be bred on other farms. They are and have been seeding that disease out, particularly going from high-risk to low-risk herds. That is why risk categorisation has been a key part of this in identifying those animals earlier that slipped through the skin test. That is why we are layering the gamma interferon test, GIF, and blood testing that goes in on top of that.

However, we do not have one test that is 100% accurate so that is the challenge we have. I get the Deputy's question. I will come back to her on it.

Yes. I am just asking where that meat goes. Does it go into the food chain exactly like meat from healthy animals even though it is slaughtered or processed in a different place? Does it go onto the shelves just the same?

I will come back on that.

I thank the Minister

The Minister is very welcome. We are getting €85 million for farmers. The people growing the vegetables and all that are farmers as well.

They surely are.

Does that come out of that €85 million as well? I know the Minister is not finished with them until 24 June.

Is the Deputy asking about the horticulture?

Yes.

There is €2 million of a ceiling ring-fenced for them out of the €85 million.

Some people gave out stink to me because they were not getting more than 20 cent a litre but, looking at the figures, even with the horticulture, I could go back to a lot of my people and tell them I hope they would get a second cheque by Christmas. We are hardly going to give back the money, are we?

I have to engage with the Department of public expenditure-----

In fairness to the Minister, he never did say that. I do not know where the 20 cent came from. We were coming from the €85 million-----

In fairness, farmers were trying to get a handle on what it looked like and whether it was worthwhile.

On a good day it could be 30 cent.

I have state aid requirements. I have to get sanction. I had an overall scheme. I had to design that scheme and explain to the Department of public expenditure what we estimated the demand would be and we got an overall allocation for that which we are discussing here today. My desire is to pay as much as I can and not leave anybody behind. That is something that would be subject to sanction from the Department of public expenditure – we need to have that discussion when we have our final figures-----

I know but just to make it easier for the Minister-----

As I said earlier there are state aid requirements.

I know, yes, but does it not make it easier for the Minister? There are people out there expecting something at Christmas. It will put the pressure on and the Minister can go back and say that then.

No, if I can answer that point specifically, there would be a difference between trying to have another payment at the back end of the year when we make all of our payments in terms of the pressure on the system-----

On a serious note, I would like to see the €85 million spent.

Sorry, if I can finish, if I could give more per litre now, that, practically, on an administrative system, would be a better way of being able to do that than trying to do it at the back end of the year when all our payments are going out and our officials in Portlaoise are under a lot of pressure.

I propose that we do that if we can.

As I say, it is not just sanction; there are state aid requirements here. The Deputy can shake his head and say-----

I have a few questions I would like to ask. What specific pressures are driving the Supplementary Estimate for Vote 30 and which areas of the Department's original 2026 budget were miscalculated?

For this Estimate?

Yes.

This Estimate is-----

No, not the one with the fuel. Forget about the fuel.

That is what we are here for. This is the €100 million.

Nothing except for the fuel?

This is only the €100 million.

That is all right then. I will not ask those then.

The €85 million is agriculture, farmers, farm contractors, forestry contractors and horticulture. The other €15 million is fisheries and aquaculture, which the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, will deal with.

I know that.

That is the €100 million and that is the only Supplementary Estimate. I would love more of a Supplementary Estimate but that is the only one I have here to discuss.

I will just ask this question and then go back to the fuel. Are we going to give money from the agriculture budget to the education budget? Is that all just talk?

On the levy that has been discussed, a levy has been referenced by the Department of public expenditure for 2027 on all Departments on the basis of an increased allocation that was required for education. That figure has been touted to Departments in terms of negotiations for next year but I want to be really clear that I am going to treat this budget process the same as I treated last year’s budget process. I have my priorities for this Department. I recognise that if everything is a priority nothing is a priority, so I do need to pick and choose things. Last year I was very clear. I had a TB action plan that needed serious resources and I got those resources. That was an absolute priority for me-----

Is the money coming out this year?

If I could finish, it is important I explain this.

I have only 20 seconds left.

Either the Deputy wants the answer to the question or he does not.

I do but I want to ask this question-----

Okay, if the Deputy will give me ten seconds. I will approach this budget the same. I will have my priorities. I got a 9% increase last year. I anticipate to get an increase in this year’s budget for next year too.

There is no money coming out of this year’s budget?

No.

That is the read that is out there. It says they are looking for-----

No.

Where did the figure of €27 million come from?

What the Minister, Deputy Chambers, referenced is levies on Departments for 2027. That is part of the budget negotiations.

So he wants the Minister to go with €27 million less next year to give to the Department of education.

As I start my budget negotiations, I have no intention of coming out with less for next year than I had for this year, all going well and if I do, I will have done a bad job negotiating. I will try to avoid that happening. I would say to the Deputy I got a 9% increase last year so I set the bar high for myself in terms of getting an increase for all our agri sectors last year and I managed to deliver that increase for TB, protect the higher rate of livestock payments and have a dedicated fund for the tillage sector, which were my priorities last year.

The Minister would want the 9% increase in everything. We are not going to have a good year now. The tillage industry at the moment needs extra money. The price of milk is down. Look at what is happening on the beef side. Nobody is making money out of it.

It is a really challenging time.

They are dropping it down over €6. It is gone to €5.80 today quoting for cattle. They are going to break people out there and they are going to break the confidence in beef.

In fairness to everybody in the Department, we have €85 million – I ask that it please not send any of it back. All I ask is that all the €85 million is given out. It is badly wanted.

I thank the Deputy.

I, too, welcome the Minister and his officials. I thank them for their work on the recent allocation for farmers and contractors and the businesses involved in the food chain, as well as bus operators and fishermen. It is very well received, which is nice to hear back.

I wish to raise a matter very briefly which I have raised a few times. The compensation in respect of TB reactors is capped at €3,000, and €5,000 in the case of pedigrees. I ask that we increase that at some stage. That is important. It is sad to hear of farmers being out of pocket.

I wish the Minister well in the CAP negotiations. It is a huge concern for farmers. There are reports of cuts of 20% or more. I wish him well in the negotiations and I know he will do a good job.

On horse and pony racing, the Minister gives Horse Racing Ireland significant moneys annually-----

That is not part of the Supplementary Estimate so it is up to the Minister if he wants to answer.

I am raising it because it is very important. The best of our jockeys come through horse and pony racing. Very recently we saw Dylan Browne McMonagle win the Epsom Oaks and Ronan Whelan won the Epsom Derby. We all know Paul Townend and Jack Kennedy, a Dingleman. Our most recent champion jockeys all came up through horse and pony racing. It is a big issue now because until 2024 they were receiving €30,000 per annum. Insurance alone is costing €68,000 now. There is a big issue which probably goes back to a tragedy on the beach near where I live, the untimely death of young Jack de Bromhead, who was only 13 years of age.

It is absolutely critical that we give support and funding to this sector or else they will not be able to improve safety or riding. It is about proper training and courses. This is the training ground for these young jockeys. They are hugely important. There are about 25 meetings nationally. They are hugely important to the local economy. People and horses from all over the Republic and Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales come for the Dingle races. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of these races. It is critical to improve safety. It could be done in memory of young Jack de Bromhead. The only way that can be done is by helping them out with funding because a lot of these meetings will fall by the wayside because of insurance and high costs, etc.

I know Horse Racing Ireland met with the horse and pony association last October but nothing has happened. If there is any help the Minister can give in that area, I would really appreciate it. It could be, strictly speaking, a matter for Horse Racing Ireland but I think it should be supporting the horse and pony association because, at the end of the day, that is where these young jockeys learn their trade.

I thank Deputy Cahill for raising those points. On compensation for reactors, I have said in this committee before that €157 million was a record amount of allocation for the TB action programme for this year. I had to give a clear commitment to the Department of public expenditure that it was very much targeted at reducing the instances of disease down the line and getting out the new five pillar plan with the 30 clear actions in it that are targeted at doing that. It has not been open to me to change those compensation figures to date but it is something I would love to be able to do in time. I hope our price of beef gets back to a better state than it is at present and this being a problem because there are less people affected by this now as the price of beef drops. I have my budget negotiations to go into around a whole range of different things. I would love to be able to change that in time but I am not in a position to do it at the minute. However, we are monitoring the reactor numbers very closely. I do understand the stress it is causing there.

The point around the CAP is a very valid one. This is a pivotal time for our farmers and beyond in the coming months. We have a hole of over 20% in our CAP package for the seven years from 2028 to 2034. That is really concerning to me, if we do not get that extra money in there. That is why during the EU Presidency I will be leading the charge for the Common Agricultural Policy being a key part of the discussions around defence and global food security. CAP needs to be a key part of that. I will require the help of everyone in this House to put on the green jersey and do the best we can to get the CAP up, however we manage to do it, to at least 100% of what it was. A direct cut and less money in the next seven years than we had in the last seven would really hit farmers directly and hard.

In relation to the points Deputy Cahill made around horse and pony racing, my funding for equine activity is on the thoroughbred side, and horse racing and breeding is through the horse and greyhound fund to Horse Racing Ireland. We fund breeding grants through Horse Sport Ireland for the sport horse as well. We do not micromanage those schemes in terms of how they do that. HRI is a semi-State body that is there to administer that. Horse Sport Ireland is funded by my Department and by the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, Deputy O'Donovan's Department, along with the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue. From that perspective, it is appropriate that the pony and horse racing sector would engage with HRI and that HRI would work with them.

Deputy Cahill says we need proper training and that breeding ground for young trainee jockeys. Deputy Newsome Drennan and I were in the new national equine campus earlier this week where we launched that new proposed training centre, building on over 50 years of the great legacy of the Racing Academy and Centre of Education, RACE, in Kildare town, which was a national training centre. It was about more than just training jockeys but that was a key part of it. There are plenty of very successful jockeys that did not come through horse and pony racing too. However, I do understand it is tradition, where it is and where it is located. Deputy Cahill talked about proper training. I agree that proper training is important. Proper regulation is important too. We do not want tragedies like those that happened in the past.

In the UK, there is pony racing that happens on track before races on certain days. It is something I would really like to see developed. I know Kildare pony club had two races on the Saturday of the Punchestown Festival at 12 noon before the main crowd came in. That was a very appropriate day because that is family day. It was regulated, it was safe and it was on the track beside the slip rail that was laid for proper racing later that day. The thrill for those young riders to be out on our local famous track was fabulous. There is a space here for pony racing into the future but we need to make sure it is properly regulated. I trust HRI to engage with the appropriate authorities on that to make sure whatever is done is safe.

I thank the Minister. I have one or two very quick questions that relate to the figures on the application for the scheme. There are some 32,000 applications from farmers and the bulk of the applications, as I understand, came in weeks one and two. The Minister said about 1,000 came in during the extended week.

The process was open for over three weeks but when we extended it the majority of applications were already in. I am happy we have not left anyone behind. There were contractors who had not got it in, particularly given in the last week we had bad weather but to be honest, there was not a massive uplift in the total amount of applications that came in. The vast majority of people got their applications in during that first window but I gave the extra week just to be sure.

Is there an indication of how many contractor applications there are, given that the time has passed now by a week or more and very few were coming in the last week? Is there an indicative figure? Is it 500, 1,000 or 5,000?

My comments around very few coming in at the end was in relation to agrifood because agrifood is an online system, so we were able to see it in real time. The challenge around the contractor piece is that they were paper based so there was a bit more of a lag with those coming in. As paper-based documents they have to be processed individually by a person and the data inputted and uploaded.

It is more than a week on at this stage. Is there an indication of how many are there to be dealt with?

We are working our way through them and I have given a clear commitment to the committee. I do not want to put a figure on exactly how many contractor ones there are because I do not have that figure to hand. I do commit to what I said about paying within the period before the end of July. We are very much on track for that so I do not see there being a delay on getting payments out. I will be very much on for paying farmers and contractors in the coming weeks.

When the Minister has the figure would he be able to send it on to the committee?

Yes, but there is a lag. It is a human processing job. Every application has to be gone through.

It is, but it is also over a week at this stage and there should be an indication, especially when there is an Estimate as well. The Department should be able to provide an indication of whether it is 1,000 or 5,000 or 15,000.

It is not 5,000.

It should be possible to give an indication.

We had estimated previously there would be 1,500 contractors or thereabouts. It is not 5,000 or up at that figure.

When you have the figure-----

Yes, we will do.

Do members want to raise any further points on the Supplementary Estimate? No.