Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 22 Feb 2024

What is the up-to-date position on the work of the wool commission? What is happening there? A number of people in my constituency have been in touch with me regarding various business ideas. They are looking for information as to how best to proceed. What information is available from the State and the Department on potential uses for wool in new businesses?

I thank the Deputy for the question. In November 2021, my Department commissioned a study of the wool sector. In July 2022, the report titled Review of Market Opportunities for Irish-Grown Wool Based Products, or the wool feasibility study for short, was published. One of the key recommendations of that study was the establishment of an independent all-island wool council that would be industry-led and comprise multiple stakeholders, including primary producers, farmers and commercial enterprises willing to fund research and marketing activities. In support of this recommendation, my Department committed financial assistance of €30,000 in seed funding. On 5 April 2023, more than 50 stakeholders from the wool sector launched the Irish Grown Wool Council. Members of the council were selected from a wide range of interests within the wool sector and include farmers, wool merchants, sheep shearers, educators, designers, crafters, industry representatives and farming organisations.

As I have said, the Irish Grown Wool Council is an independent body with members from both sides of the Border. My Department does not have a seat on the council itself and the council does not report to me. However, I am aware that the Irish Grown Wool Council has done internal work regarding its structures and governance. It recently held its first AGM - I believe it was this month - to discuss motions such as the appointment of council members and an independent chairperson.

The main external activity carried out since the establishment of the Irish Grown Wool Council was its recent participation in the Design & Crafts Council Ireland 2024 showcase at the RDS in late January. Its participation in the event included three one-hour expert discussion panels. The Irish Grown Wool Council also used the event as an opportunity to launch its IGWC brand and a new website, which can be found at www.irishgrownwoolcouncil.com.

As Minister of State, I met with the Irish Grown Wool Council at the end of last year. I will continue to work with the Irish Grown Wool Council to help it achieve its aims of promoting Irish wool as a natural, sustainable and versatile material and to carry out research to develop alternative markets and uses for Irish wool.

I thank the Minister of State for the update. I encourage all efforts to ensure the wool council is a success. I acknowledge the support from the Department by way of seed funding. I especially acknowledge the fact it is an all-island body. That is very welcome here, as it is in every aspect of life.

I have spoken to a number of farmers and people living in rural communities in Kerry who want to explore various ideas for other uses that could be found for wool other than the more traditional uses. There seems to be a difficulty for people exploring ideas and getting feedback. For example, one person was on to me who was looking to do something with wool on the insulation front. They are finding it difficult, even with the assistance of other State agencies, to get anything substantial in the type of information they would need to develop a business further, access to finance and so on. Is there any advice the Minister of State could give to such people or is there any help available within her Department to assist such entrepreneurs?

I thank the Deputy. There is a lot of interest from farmers and crafters in the opportunities with wool. I would encourage anyone who is interested or has an idea to engage with the Irish Grown Wool Council because, essentially, it is its function to gather such information and come up with proposals for what would be necessary to develop an industry using Irish wool. The wool research and innovation hub was also established to support the Irish Grown Wool Council, and its purpose is to conduct research and innovation to deliver products to market and aid with their commercialisation. This group is headed by the Circular Bioeconomy Cluster South West at the Kerry campus of Munster Technological University. There are all sorts of potential areas, as the Deputy has outlined, in product development, whether that is in the horticulture sector with compost, in pelting, or in the construction sector where it can be added to cement or used to decarbonise construction in that way. There are also opportunities in packaging, be it in building products or in cosmetics. In one sense the world is our oyster when it comes to wool. It is about generating and creating those routes to market and making sure there is a demand for these products. Unfortunately, at the moment there is not and that is why we are in the situation we are in. As a sheep farmer myself I know how frustrating that is.

Concerns have been raised about Department plans to impose buffer zones around areas where turf cutting is permitted in commonage areas and the very real impact this may have on scores under the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, and possibly reduced ACRES payments. Will the Minister give us an update on the Department plans on this?

I thank Deputy Kerrane. The Deputy will be aware that the ACRES scheme is our flagship environmental scheme under the new CAP. Over the course of the past year we have had 1.1 million ha of land scored, representing 25% of our overall total productive land in the Republic, including more than 400,000 ha of commonage. This is a phenomenal achievement and one that advisers and farmers as well as ACRES co-operation project, CP, teams and other stakeholders can be rightly proud of.

In supporting this results-based approach, my Department and the co-operation teams developed a series of ten scorecards to assess the environmental status of the habitats in ACRES. The scorecards include positive indicators such as plant species, vegetation structure and wetness. They also include threats and pressures such as exposed soil and damaging activities, which can include turbary activity. These scorecards also capture management advice to improve the habitat, allowing farmers to improve the score and ultimately their payments.

The scoring of the commonage areas was undertaken by ACRES co-operation project teams and completed over the course of the year. As part of that I was very conscious that turf cutting activity could potentially have a disproportionate impact on commonage scores and especially if the commonage is scored as one field and there is a high level of active peat cutting and associated works. This is why, together with the co-operation project teams, a protocol was developed for the co-operation project teams to ensure turbary and non-turbary areas were assessed separately. This protocol maintains the environmental integrity of ACRES and the environmental integrity of the wider CAP strategic plan. Under the protocol, the active turbary area plus a buffer zone of 100 m is applied when delineating turbary field boundaries. I want to be clear, however, that this 100 m buffer is not applied where there is distinct ideological divide between active turbary and the adjacent commonage such as a watercourse, for example.

In recent weeks the issue of the buffer has been brought to my attention for the first time by some farm representative organisations. I have, therefore, engaged with my own team and I am awaiting a report from my officials as to the likely impact the buffer could have on payments. I will give that very careful consideration once I have received it.

It is the case then that a proposal has been made for this 100 m buffer zone around where turbary activity is taking place and turf is being cut on common areas. Many farmers on commonage areas may not be cutting turf but they will be impacted if such a buffer zone actually comes to pass. The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association, INHFA, said it had discussions with the Department last year and an understanding was reached that allowed for the areas where the turf is being cut to be separated. The Minister referred to that in relation to it being scored separately. This really needs to be held because it will have an impact on the overall score and an impact on farmers' payments when in some cases they have nothing to do with the turf cutting on the commonage area to begin with. It is important we get clarity on this as soon as possible. The proposal has been put to the Minister and has been looked at. Will the Minister be clear very quickly about the decision made on that? The INHFA had its discussion and came away with the understanding that there will not be a negative impact on farmers in commonage areas when it comes to the ACRES scoring and payments. How long will it take the Minister to look at this proposal and confirm what the situation will be?

This issue was first brought to my attention by the INHFA and their Donegal chairman, Mr. John McConway, and the concern that turbary as scored as part of the wider commonage would have a disproportionate impact. Having taken on board that concern, there was engagement with the Department. The direction agreed after that was that the turbary would be extracted from the wider commonage and scored separately. My team in the Department then developed a protocol working with the co-operation project teams. They agreed and implemented a 100 m buffer coming out of that, but not in all circumstances because where there is a natural break, the 100 m buffer does not apply. The co-operation teams went ahead on the basis of that and have scored all the commonages on the basis of that.

This buffer issue was brought to my attention for the first time again in the past ten days or so. As a result of that I have now engaged with my Department and am continuing to engage on the potential impact of that, bearing in mind that the scoring has already been done by co-operation project teams over the course of last summer and it is only being brought to my attention at this stage by any representative organisation and the INHFA in raising it with me. I understand the concern about this. This is why I am looking at it and drilling down into it. Working with my team, we will continue to do that. I do not have a timeline on this. Obviously we have made the decision on the interim payment of €4,000 and €5,000 to everyone. I will be using that space now to engage further with the team to conclude and make sure all the ACRES work is finished, and to look at that particular issue.

I ask that this work is completed as quickly as possible. In the Minister's reply he clearly outlined at the very start that they would be scored separately and then, by the sounds of things, the co-operation project teams implemented the buffer zone anyway. This appears to have been implemented and it should not have been. The INHFA is very concerned. Its representatives met with the Department last year and an agreement was reached, and now clearly this has been changed. I appreciate that the Minister is looking at it. It needs to be looked at as quickly as possible. The interim payments are being made, which is fine for this portion, but we need a definite decision on this and farmers need to be clear that on commonages where turf is being cut, a buffer zone will not exist. The Minister must be clear on this when he has completed the work as quickly as possible because it will affect scores and it will affect payments if the 100 m buffer zone around these areas goes ahead.

At the outset the initial intention was that everything would be scored within the one commonage together and the turbary would be within that commonage as well. The concern was then expressed that this could lead to a disproportionate impact on the overall score and the payment to the farmer. I then intervened and the decision was made to extract and separate out turbary from the wider commonage and that it would be scored separately as a separate parcel as such. Up to that it was going to be incorporated into the wider commonage. After the implementation of that, working with my own team and the co-operation teams, the protocol was settled on and then the co-operation teams scored that based on the 100 m buffer, or less than that where there are natural breaks.

This has been brought to my attention in the past ten days with regard to the protocol and the potential impact. It is something I understand, particularly coming from Donegal. I am very much aware of this. This is why I am engaging with my team on it. It is against the backdrop of the scoring by the co-operation teams having taken place and having been submitted. Now that it has been brought to my attention, I am looking at it to fully assess it. I am very conscious of the issue.

This question asks for an update on the women farmers' capital investment scheme under TAMS. Will the Minister advise whether he will seek to review the eligibility criteria for the scheme given the very low number of approved applications and given that concerns had been raised by the Women in Agriculture Stakeholders Group about the criteria set out for the knowledge transfer and for the scheme under TAMS before the approvals were made?

I thank Deputy Kerrane for raising this very important issue. I remind the House that the rationale behind the establishment of this new element of TAMS was to further develop gender equality throughout the agriculture sphere, to encourage more capital investment on farms and, in many instances, to recognise the role that many females already play on farms throughout the country, in the day-to-day work and in managerial decision-making positions. For historical reasons, and because their names are not on the system, these individual females are not recognised by the Department or the State for their contribution. To encourage this is the key ambition behind everything we are doing.

The women farmers' capital investment scheme is one of the measures in the targeted agriculture modernisation scheme, TAMS, 3, which provides grants to farmers to build and-or improve a specified range of farm buildings and equipment on their holdings. As Deputy Kerrane is aware, an indicative overall budget of €370 million is available for the period from 2023 to 2027. All investments must be linked to climate, environment or animal welfare. TAMS 3 has been very popular, with an unprecedented level of applications received, at almost four times the average number received per tranche under TAMS 2. Good interest has been shown in the women farmers' capital investment scheme. A total of 259 applications were received under tranche 1 and a further 438 applications were received under tranche 2, which closed on 19 January 2024. To date, 68 approval letters have issued to tranche 1 applicants and approvals continue to issue daily. It is important to remember we outlined back in January that in the granting and processing system we are working through, the women TAMS, for want of a better description, was one of the last to open, which it did in June of last year. The solar scheme was the first to open and the first to be processed. We are working through them and we will clear them in the coming weeks. We had a meeting with officials on it yesterday and we are making good progress on it.

I thank the Minister of State for his response. It is welcome that 68 of the 259 applications that have been submitted have been approved and letters have been issued. Obviously there is a long way to go with the remaining applications. I presume the Department is getting through them as quickly as possible. This is important. I want to raise again the issue of the limiting eligibility criteria. This has been raised for months, especially by the Women in Agriculture Stakeholders Group. It had flagged that the criteria as set out could lock women out of accessing these supports. We know that to qualify under the new scheme, women farmers must have been part of the farming enterprise in 2022 or have completed an agricultural qualification. The Women in Agriculture Stakeholders Group raised these as issues locking women out of accessing the TAMS support in the first place. I ask that the remaining applications be progressed as quickly as possible and that the Minister of State look to review the scheme's eligibility. One of the recommendations in the national women in agriculture action plan looks at scheme eligibility requirements and the need for them to be reviewed. I ask that this be done, perhaps after final approvals are made in the scheme.

I thank the Deputy Kerrane. We keep a constant review on all elements of TAMS. It does evolve. There are no plans at present to change eligibility criteria for the women farmers' capital investment scheme or any other element of TAMS, but TAMS 3, as were previous TAMS, has been monitored and followed through with regard to how we might change it.

With regard to the point on the work that has been done today to get us to this point, the total of 700 applications shows good interest in it. No doubt we will have more under TAMS 3. We are working through processing them as quickly as possible. It is important to highlight we have been very flexible with regard to mobile equipment. The women farmers' capital investment scheme is very similar to the young farmer capital investment scheme. It is quite complex because it covers every aspect of capital investment and not just one specific element. For example, farm safety has many mobile pieces and it is easier to process. The other is very complex as there could be very large capital investment schemes availing of a 60% grant. We have to have strict conditionality on this to protect the public interest.

I appreciate that schemes such as TAMS are constantly examined with regard to eligibility criteria. Again I make the point that the Women in Agriculture Stakeholders Group has raised issues for months about the eligibility criteria for TAMS and for knowledge transfer. Given that it has raised these concerns, I ask that specifically the payment under TAMS for the women farmers' capital investment scheme and the specific eligibility criteria for the scheme be looked at.

Will the Minister of State give a timeline for the remaining approvals? There are quite a number to get through, with 68 out of 259 approved. Will the Minister of State give a timeline for the remaining applications in tranche 1?

The officials are making good progress through them. We hope to have them all cleared in early April. Good progress is being made in this regard.

I acknowledge the work of the Women in Agriculture Stakeholders Group, which has led the way on this. We were very happy to work on its early proposals. As things evolve and change, we keep an eye on its requests.

To go back to the point, we have to protect the public good and ensure any scheme we have is not open to being used for purposes other than what it is designed for. I know that issues regarding herd numbers have been raised. We have to safeguard the integrity of the overall system so that we do not undermine it for those 700 who qualify. We will keep it under review, as we do with all elements of TAMS. Right now, our priority is to process the 700 women in agriculture capital investment applications as quickly as possible.

I thank Deputy Murnane O'Connor for raising this issue. As she knows, it is well documented that food waste is an important and real challenge. It is an issue I take very seriously, both personally and in the strategic positions and actions taken by my Department.

At the strategic level, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine works very closely with its counterpart, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, on exploring ways to achieve UN sustainable development goal 12.3, which commits that by 2030 we should halve, per capita, global food waste at retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses. This commitment is also reflected in Food Vision 2030, the ten-year strategy for the agrifood sector.

Together with the Minister of State at the other Department, Deputy Ossian Smyth, who has responsibility for this, we launched the Government's food waste prevention roadmap in November 2022. This roadmap sets out a number of priority actions to bring the focus on food waste prevention in a coherent manner across key sectors in the supply chain. One of the key actions in the roadmap was a relaunch of the EPA food charter I launched last June with the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth. Food businesses that sign up to the food waste charter make a number of commitments related to measuring, reporting and reducing food waste. While sign-up to the charter is voluntary, these commitments by companies will be essential drivers across the agricultural and food supply chain to allow us to measure our progress against the 50% reduction target.

On funding, the Department has provided €10 million over recent years for the purchase of specialised equipment by the National Prepared Consumer Food Centre in Ashtown. This allows food companies to undertake piloting of their innovative processes, including reducing food waste in their production processes and packaging.

In May last year, I allocated €180,000 funding under the rural innovation and development fund to the FoodCloud growers’ project, which is doing tremendous work.

The project aimed to redistribute 60 tonnes of food produce in 2023, avoiding 190,000 kg of carbon equivalent. In January, I issued another call for proposals under that fund.

This is a matter that we all have to take seriously. Along with our respective teams, the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, and I are working closely on this.

Globally, a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. The EPA estimates that, in Ireland, we waste approximately 750,000 tonnes of food each year. According to its 2021 research, most of that wastage occurred at the manufacturing and processing stage, representing 29%, and at the household stage, another 29%, with 25% of waste generated by restaurants and the food service industry.

I welcome the Minister’s comments about what has been launched, but where household waste is concerned, I am a firm believer in communicating information, working with various areas and educating people about what is happening. Incentives are also important in this regard.

Food waste is becoming a significant issue globally. Its impact on the environment is also a concern. The EPA estimates that it accounts for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That is quite worrying.

The Minister spoke about his roadmap and about how he is on track to meet his 2030 targets. I welcome that.

The Deputy is plugged into the farming community in her constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny and she does considerable work with its members. She is aware of the massive effort from morning until late at night, 365 days per year, that goes into producing food. I was glad to meet the large number of farmers who attended a meeting she organised a few months ago. The onus is on us all to ensure that the considerable work done by farm families ends up on plates, fuels, sustains and nourishes people in whatever part of the world they might be, and is not wasted. This requires that people throughout the food supply chain be attentive to what is happening and eliminate waste. There is an onus on everyone working in the supply chain from farm to fork to ensure that is the case.

In terms of leadership, my Department and the Department of energy, communications and climate are working with the EPA, which has a strong advocacy role in this regard. We have the food charter, which lays out a pathway for companies and everyone else to contribute to reducing food waste. There has been a strong uptake of the charter. Collectively, we will continue driving this forward while also putting out the message, as the Deputy is doing today, about the importance of respecting food and the work that farmers in Carlow and elsewhere put into producing it and of ensuring it ends up nourishing people in our country or anywhere else in the world. People need it and the work that goes into it deserves to end up on their plates.

The Minister spoke about the hard work done by our farming community. The same applies to hoteliers and everyone else across the board. Food is important to us. According to the EPA’s 2021 report, the Government funded the efficient food project, which estimated the amount of food waste and loss in primary production in Ireland for the first time. It is important that the Government has recognised this issue.

I pay tribute to my farmers in Carlow-Kilkenny. I see the work they do. I met them at the rally two weeks ago in Carlow, but we will discuss the concerns they raised another day. I know the Minister will meet them.

The Department of agriculture is aware of this issue and I know the work the Minister is doing. He spoke about farm to fork. The strategy is important. All I can do is highlight that this is about information, communication and everyone working together. If we do that, it will go a long way towards getting this issue sorted.

We will keep up the work and continue to fund the many organisations that are doing great work in this area. A large part of addressing the issue involves talking about it and ensuring there is an awareness of it. For the average family household, food going from the fridge to the bin instead of from the fridge to the plate costs approximately €800 per year. It is a sin to see that food and all that went into getting it that far wasted. Each of us can do more in this regard. Everyone throughout the supply chain has to play his or her part if we are to halve the amount of waste in the system by 2030.

This is a matter on which I have made a commitment. As a result of the economic recession prior to the CAP before last, a group of young farmers did not get to avail of a number of supports that had been available previously. Those farmers are still actively farming and we want to see them continuing in that. We also want the fact that they missed out on those earlier opportunities to be acknowledged in some way, and I have made a commitment to do that.

Logistically, there is a significant challenge at departmental level in delivering the scheme, as a system has to be built to deliver it. Last year, we faced a challenge in rolling out the new CAP schemes, which took priority. However, my Department is now working on setting up the system we will need for this scheme and getting us into a position to be able to make the payment. It is one I want to see happen, as it would be meaningful to the many farmers who were not able to avail of the supports in question almost 15 years ago when they started off farming.

I acknowledge that this has been a priority for the Minister, but as he mentioned, this situation has been going on for a long time. To clarify, he stated that a system had to be built. Is it the case that he knows what the scheme for forgotten farmers looks like? That is not clear to the general public. I have been contacted repeatedly by forgotten farmers, who are in a desperate situation and questioning whether they can continue farming. That is concerning. Does the Minister have the scheme’s outline? What will the scheme be? Will he publish its details? If he has the outline, is it the case that he is just looking at building the system in order to make the payments? That has not been made clear, so he might clarify.

The Department has carried out a few analyses of this. The category of farmer we are discussing comprises those who commenced prior to 2008, were under 40 years of age in 2015 and held low-value entitlements under the BPS. A 2019 assessment showed that 3,900 farmers fulfilled the criteria, with the cost of increasing the value of entitlements estimated to be €12 million. Obviously, we are conducting a separate assessment now because we have seen convergence, which has averaged out payments significantly, happen in the meantime.

I do not have it to hand, but when I made my commitment on this scheme, I publicly announced the general categories that would be included. The challenge now is to move the commitment on and make the payments. This issue dates back 16 years to 2008, but it is one that I want to get resolved and bring to a conclusion. I have the team prioritising it this year so that the scheme can be progressed and delivered.

I know that the general cohort of farmers was detailed previously, but I do not believe that a detailed outline of the scheme has been published. This would be important. There is no point in building a system for payments if we do not know what the scheme will look like. We need to be clear with the forgotten farmers about who will be able to join the scheme. I ask that the Minister publish a detailed outline of the scheme before he builds anything to make payments. Has he engaged with the farm organisations and the forgotten farmers themselves, many of whom are part of the various farm organisations, on the general cohort of farmers he is including?

I ask him to publish a more detailed outline of what this scheme will look like for forgotten farmers in the first instance. That should be done as quickly as possible, given, as he said, that this has gone on for a very long time.

The system to identify the different categories of farmers and deliver the payment will be important. That is being expedited and moved forward. The overall funding commitment will determine the level of payment we can make. I will engage further with the Department of public expenditure and Deputy Kerrane on that. There has been significant engagement over the last two or three years with farm representative organisations about the definition of a forgotten farmer and who comes under that categorisation. That has all been taken on board by the Department. It is something I will get further detail on as the year evolves. I have tasked the team with building the system to do it. I will engage further with the Department of public expenditure on the capacity and strength of the payment.

These two questions seek to ascertain the number of farmers with and without commonage in ACRES, the number who have received a payment to date, and when the balance who have not got paid will receive a payment. I understand the vast majority of those are farmers with commonage because there is a lot of disquiet about payments, which I think the Minister is aware of. I understand he is taking some steps but I would be interested to find out exactly what the situation is.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 57 and 78 together.

I thank Deputy Ó Cuív for raising this issue. I know it is particularly important to farmers in Galway and Mayo, as it is in Donegal. Either Galway or Mayo has the highest number of ACRES participants, at more than 5,000, which is over one ninth of the national total. The scheme has been quite popular for people to engage with. There are issues with the practicalities of rolling it out. The particular challenge with ACRES is different from the other schemes we have done this year in that it has been a challenge with getting payments out on time. We hoped to have that done by December but that was not possible. We hoped that the systems would be finalised in time to do it for February and, again, that has not been possible, so that work is ongoing.

I have intervened to decide that there will be an interim payment, which will be issued by the end of this month. That interim payment will be at the rate of €4,000 to farmers who are in the general scheme and €5,000 to those who are in the co-operation scheme. That means that by the end of this month, every single farmer, bar none, who participated in ACRES last year will have received a payment. It will either be the payment they got in December, if they have already been paid, or the €4,000 or €5,000 now. Work is continuing on finalising the build-out of the system around ACRES. It has proven to be the most logistically challenging of our schemes for the team to work through. The balancing payments will be made in June to net off the €4,000 or €5,000 that the farmers will receive by the end of this month against what their final payment would be.

Have we any idea of how the commonages will be scored and what the final outcome there will be? Many farmers are not only worried about getting payments, because they need payment urgently, but they are also concerned about the uncertainty regarding the final size of the payment they will get under ACRES, particularly in relation to commonage. How soon will they be given the final score on their land and also on their commonages? Will the Minister also tell me how many farmers have got their payment to date and how many have not? How many farmers can expect a cheque between now and the end of the month out of the total number in the scheme?

So far, only farmers participating in the general stream have received any payment. Out of 28,000 in the general stream, some 20,000 have received a payment, with over €88 million paid out to them so far. Around 18,000 other farmers are in the co-operation stream. They will now all receive €5,000 by the end of this month. Those in the general stream-----

Some 18,000 in the co-operation stream. In total, we will see 26,000 farmers receive the interim payment of either €4,000 in the case of the 8,000 general stream farmers who have not been paid, or €5,000 for the 18,000 co-operation stream farmers, none of whom have received a payment yet. I accept what the Deputy is saying. Farmers will be very keen to see the level of their final payment. The scoring was published and is publicly available. It would have been scored by the co-operation teams in each area and then returned to the Department. What that score is going to be and how different commonages are amalgamated and how they come together is part of what the build will determine in bringing all of those scores together. That is why getting it finalised has been complicated. I think the interim payment will be important in getting payments to farmers to allow them a couple of months to get that finalised, to get the final payment clarified and to get the final balancing payments made to farmers.

Can the Minister also let me know whether it would be hoped, for year two of ACRES, for the first payment to take place before Christmas this year? Farmers would effectively get two payments. That causes a little wobble for some people with how they do their accounts, if they do it on a cash receipts basis. On the other hand, the quicker they get the payments, the better. Will they be paid the first ACRES payment before the end of this year as had been planned for last year?

The other part of payments for farmers in the common areas scheme is voluntary measures. Obviously, they have to be approved in advance. They are going to be approved in April. Farmers want to know whether they will be reimbursed in this calendar year if they carry out those measures, which are going to involve up-front expenditure to pay for troughs, fencing and so on. I suppose they are slightly suspicious. If they are approved for the measures and carry them out this year, when will they be paid? Can the Minister give an undertaking that it will happen in this calendar year, if the expenditure is in this calendar year?

In response to Deputy McNamara, my understanding from recollection is that approvals are still required in most of those instances. It would certainly be the intention that once approvals are given, they can move through to payments. That is part of the scheme that is still being rolled out and is the next step in relation to the co-operation streams.

In response to Deputy Ó Cuív's question, the intention would be to be in a position to pay everybody by the end of this year. Obviously, the system is still being built and finalised with regard to payments and making sure that scores are delivered. That has proven challenging but it will be worked out over the next couple of months. The balancing payment will be in June with the target of making sure everybody will get into the normal way of going and will receive their payments at the end of this year for 2024.

I thank Deputy Griffin for raising a really important issue. Due to the prevalence of farm safety issues and farm workplace incidents, farmers are the most likely workers to lose their lives. Farming is the most dangerous profession in Ireland. A farmer is seven times more likely to lose their life in a workplace incident than any other one of the more than 2.5 million workers in this country who is in a different profession. That meant that we put a particular focus on this issue when we formed this Government. I was the first Minister of State to be given direct responsibility for farm safety. In that time, I have used my role in the Department of agriculture, working with the Health and Safety Authority, which has statutory responsibility for workplace safety, to work on its promotion and changing the culture.

It also includes, structurally within the Department, getting a dedicated unit set up, as well as a dedicated fund, which stands at €2.5 million following the most recent budget, to support initiatives to promote farm safety practices, risk awareness and behavioural change around farm safety from a young age. We have a range of ways of doing that. We have done it through working with the HSA on media and promotional campaigns, following on from joint media campaigns in 2023. In conjunction with the farm safety partnership advisory committee, we put together the booklet, How to Make Construction Appointments for Your Farm, which was distributed to 125,000 farmers as part of their 2024 basic income support for sustainability, BISS, packs. We know that when construction takes place on farms, that is a time of real risk and danger.

Beyond that, there is the On Feirm Ground initiative, which I am very proud of. My Department works in collaboration with the HSE and the Department of Health to co-fund a farmers' physical and mental health awareness programme. This includes trained agricultural advisers and has now expanded to bring in private veterinary practitioners, departmental staff and other professionals who are in regular contact with farmers and are ideally situated to signpost farmers to relevant health services. We have also incorporated training through the suckler carbon efficiency programme to 15,000 farmers. The agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES. training scheme provides an overview of health and safety, while knowledge transfer programmes will include farm safety, farm health and well-being as priority topics.

I will touch on a number of other areas in my supplementary answer.

I thank the Minister of State for his very comprehensive response. I appreciate all the efforts that are being made. He is in a difficult situation in that the number of lives saved will never be known, but he can take it and accept, due to these initiatives, that lives are saved. Naturally, we do not ever hear about that but it is critical that all efforts are maintained and intensified. Every single death is one too many.

I sympathise with everybody who has lost someone on a farm, whether recently or in the past. In particular, I offer my condolences and sympathy to the family and friends of Darragh Dullea and Cillian Kirwan, who were students at the college in Pallaskenry, County Limerick. They passed away in a tragic accident on Tuesday. My thoughts and sympathies are with them. They were young farmers who had bright futures ahead of them. It is extremely tragic.

Will the Minister of State outline whether efforts are under way to plan for Farm Safety Week 2024? Are there further initiatives that he would like to see implemented in future?

I share with the Deputy in offering condolences to the families of those affected in that awful tragedy on Tuesday.

There are other initiatives. I see my role in farm safety as not just involving the physical form of farm safety but the mental health and well-being of farmers. My Department continues to support research into farmer health and well-being. The DCU-led farm health research project is examining farmers' mental health literacy and help-seeking behaviour to inform the development of educational mental health programmes through which we can support farmers. I announced funding of €700,000 under the recent thematic research call for the UCD-led project Farming Minds: Developing evidence-based interventions to enhance farmer mental health, which is very important.

I will also highlight an initiative I am very proud of, namely, getting farm safety as a scheme under targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, 3. Of the ten TAM schemes, the farm safety capital investment scheme has been significantly subscribed to by farmers. It has had the biggest number of applicants at 5,163, which is proof that when farmers are given the support they will invest in safety on their farms and put it as a top priority. Along with my €128,000 in funding to Agri Aware for its school children's farm safety initiative, it means we are touching every generation in farming to bring about that cultural change we need to make farming much safer for everyone involved.

All those initiatives are very important. I am glad the Minister of State mentioned mental health as it is something that particularly deserves attention and focus. It is a very worthy effort and expenditure that the Department is embarking on in that area because it is critically important.

In the past, I remember television was a medium used for farm safety promotions and various other initiatives. Is that something that could again be looked at? With social media, there are ways to target your audience in a very specific way, but television is a catch-all. We know that many people who are not farmers visit farms. Children on their holidays, for example, would be in close proximity to farms or using roads that are shared with farm machinery, etc. There is scope for a broader, blanket farm safety and agricultural safety awareness campaign in future. Perhaps it might be considered.

Absolutely. Promotion is a key part of my role. In the children's farm safety initiative in schools, in conjunction with Agri Aware, we are using the positive pester power of children. The Deputy is well aware, as I am, that when children decide they want something, they do not leave you alone until they get it. Instead of me pleading with my uncle to get on top of a very dangerous load of bales on the trip home, as I did 40 years ago, those children are now pestering their parents by saying what they are doing is not safe because they learned that in school. That is a very positive initiative and way of doing that.

The point the Deputy made on promotion is very valid. There are numerous ways to do that. We have had joint TV initiatives with the HSA in the past, but I am acutely aware of how farmers in the modern day now get their information. It is largely through their mobile phones, online and digital. We have to change. We funded an online initiative last year, which got directly to farmers where they sourced their news, to place adverts, pieces of information and key campaigns throughout all the seasons. At this time of the year, it is about calving and later it will be about silage, slurry spreading and agitation. At those dangerous points, we are getting the key message of how to operate more safely and how better to identify risk to farmers at that time.

What work has the Department under way when it comes to supporting farm succession and generational renewal? I commend Macra na Feirme in particular on doing a great deal of work on succession and supporting the next generation on to the farm. I was a little surprised that at the recent Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association conference, which the Minister attended, a number of the questions from the audience were not so much about ACRES, different schemes and late payments, but about the next generation and encouraging their children on to the farm, which was very interesting. What work has the Department under way with regard to these matters?

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a critical issue for the future of farming and agriculture. Supporting generational renewal is one of our main priorities as Ministers. It is also one of the great challenges facing farming, not just in Ireland but across the EU.

Worldwide, the average age of farmers is higher than everyone would like it to be. For this reason, the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, 2023 to 2027, cites generational renewal as one of its nine key objectives, recognising the need for the agricultural sector to attract skilled and innovative young farmers to provide quality food and environmental public goods. Ireland needs generational renewal in our agricultural sector and through our CAP strategic plan, we are providing strong, tangible support for young farmers in the period up to 2027. Among the measures introduced are a complementary income support scheme assisting young farmers establishing farming businesses with a payment of more than €175 per ha, subject to a maximum of 50 ha over five years; a national reserve scheme providing payment entitlements to young farmers on land for which they hold no entitlements, and-or a top-up of existing entitlements to bring them in line with the national average value, subject to a maximum of 50 entitlements per applicant; a higher grant rate of 60% for qualified young farmers under the TAMS capital investment measure; a collaborative farming grant to promote and support partnerships with young, trained farmers; and a succession planning advice grant to assist farmers aged over 60 to seek succession planning advice.

In my area of farm safety and farmer mental health and well-being, I supported a fascinating European Innovation Partnership, EIP, in the west of Ireland, which supported 30 families through the whole succession process. The report on that EIP is very valuable. We can scale up that initiative and do it at a much higher level to break down those barriers and a lot of the fear farmers have around issues, such as tax and other implications. It is about recognising that by having a conversation in a structured, timely way, and by supporting farmers and farm families to have that conversation, we can take an awful lot of the stress and concern out of succession, which means many succession conversations do not happen at present.

I acknowledge more grants and money are available to young farmers now than have ever been previously. However, there is a missing piece regarding the lack of a succession scheme, which Macra na Feirme has called for many times. Has the Department looked at the possibility of a retirement scheme for farmers? There is lots there for young farmers, but to enable older farmers to leave the enterprise to the next generation, they need to be supported financially.

Is this something the Department has looked at?

The Deputy is right in saying there is a range of agricultural reliefs. Some of these we take for granted, but if anything were ever to happen to the agricultural relief for young farmers, stamp duty relief and consanguinity duty relief, through which €274 million was provided in support in 2022, we would know very quickly how big a devastating impact that would have. I mention the 100% stock relief for young, trained farmers as well.

The approach of the Government and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has been to support the younger generations to take farming on and to incentivise this happening, like the support provided by the young, trained farmers element of the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, and those other supports that encourage this transition. I remember a past early retirement scheme where farmers from 55 to 65 were afraid to get caught walking across the yard carrying a bucket in case they were going to be disqualified and have to then pay everything back. Even when they reached 65, those farmers still had a lot to offer. That was also a very expensive scheme. We would, therefore, have to look, in terms of value for money, to see the best way of doing this and any tweaks to be made in this regard. We work with Macra na Feirme and look at the proposals it has suggested around succession. This is an area many people have a view on and I believe there is much more we can do to support farmers to take the fear out of the conversation around succession and to have this process happen in a planned way. This is always way better than succession happening in a time of crisis.