I thank Deputy O'Donoghue for raising what is a really important issue. I also offer my condolences and sympathies to those affected by recent bereavements, whether they finally get categorised as farm safety fatalities or otherwise. The HSA, as a statutory body, has work to do. There are an unacceptably high level of fatalities on farms and, as the Deputy quite rightly outlined, ours is the most dangerous workplace in all of Ireland - disproportionately so when you consider the size of the workforce in comparison with those in other industries. My colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, has special responsibility for farm safety, who unfortunately cannot be here today, and I are very concerned by the sharp increase in the number of fatal incidents on farms in 2025, with older farmers proving particularly vulnerable. That was the tenet of the original point of Deputy O'Donoghue's question. As regards the nature of these things, circumstances have changed in the Limerick region since the Deputy submitted the question, as he has outlined. The 24 confirmed farm fatalities in 2025 were double the number for 2024. The Health and Safety Authority, which has primary responsibility for health and safety on farms, is investigating the death of an elderly farmer in a farm incident earlier this month. I extend my deepest sympathies to the family of this elderly farmer and the many other families dealing with the loss of a loved one in a farming incident. Farm safety, health and well-being are an absolute priority for the Government. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to continue to prioritise improvements in farm safety, health and well-being. My Department supports the efforts of the Health and Safety Authority and the Farm Safety Partnership to improve health and safety on Irish farms. Last year, I allocated €1.6 million in funding for 36 farm safety, health and well-being projects under an open call. I secured dedicated funding of €3 million for farm safety, health, and well-being initiatives in budget 2026 to build on existing, and to support new, initiatives in this area, which the Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae, has responsibility for. I will go into more detail in my supplementary response.
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Obviously, anything we say now is in general and not in relation to any specific case.
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We talked about a range of issues. Generational renewal has a role to play here as well because, in general, the figures show a disproportionate number of old people are dying on our farms. When people asked me before why so many people in their 70s, and some in their 80s, are dying on our farms, it is because so many people are farming in their 70s and 80s. In any other profession, they would not still be working and in harm's way to that extent. In terms of the practical measures in place, when I was a Minister of State, I secured a dedicated budget. I got a separate funding stream under TAMs for farm safety measures, and that has been hugely popular. As well as the farm safety budget, my Department provides 60% grant aid for a range of farm safety-related investments under the farm safety capital investment scheme in TAMs. Further health and safety guidelines are included in all building specifications and all TAMS applicants are required to complete a half-day of farm safety training. That training is included as part of ACRES, the knowledge transfer programme and the suckler carbon efficiency programme, SCEP, as well.
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I thank the Deputy. I also want to mention the accelerated capital allowances scheme for farm safety equipment which was expanded to cover a broader range of farm safety investments in budget 2025. A suite of different financial supports are there. In relation to older farmers, three quarters of farm fatalities last year involved farmers over 60 years of age. The HSA's farm safety partnership has designed a leaflet entitled, Farming in Older Age, and this will be distributed along with the 2026 BISS, basic income support for sustainability packs to over 125,000 farmers. It will be going out in the post to them. Additionally, my Department is providing funding for the delivery of farm safety awareness programmes for primary and secondary school students to instil the message of farm safety into children from a young age. It is not just to make children more aware. As a father of four young kids, I can tell you the pester power of kids to give out to the older farmers who are doing stuff that is dangerous. Ultimately, at the heart of all this, we have a poor attitude to risk on our farms. We take risks, we put ourselves in harm's way and we think near misses are a normal way of life. No other industry finds that acceptable, and until we change that attitude to risk, we are going to continue to have an unacceptably high level. There is no level that is acceptable because one death is one too many and where are now right now has to change.
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That was quite a pivot, Deputy. First, the recall and the food safety elements are a matter for the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, FSAI, which comes under the Department of Health. Any queries in that respect should be directed towards it. The Deputy has touched on the Bord Bia issue here. There needs to be a proper debate and explanation. Obviously, Mr. Murrin will be in front of the joint committee, and happy to engage in that. There is a complete lack of perspective in this debate given the integrated nature of global trades and the fact that this specific trade deal covered over 42 countries.
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We have the IFA protesting, and the people who are protesting are being denied that detailed briefing by their leadership. Of all the things I am dealing with this week-----
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I am dealing with a lot of things this week, including the outbreak of bluetongue, working on issues around the Agri-Food Regulator, making sure the carbon border adjustment mechanism, CBAM, does not have a bad impact on farmers and reform of the CAP. I was in Brussels on Monday doing that. I was in the Seanad yesterday on nitrates. This other issue is one being conflated and hyped up, and farmers are being done a disservice because there is not-----
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----practical and fair space for the discussion on this issue. The Deputy standing up here calling for a head and for a witch hunt against someone who has not broken rules, and not wanting any debate-----
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-----and like the IFA, not wanting clear information out there, is not doing farmers any service. It is not. I am going to leave it there. In relation to the actual question the Deputy put down, I am satisfied that the Agri-Food Regulator is fulfilling its overall statutory role to the highest standards, in particular on the unfair trading practices, the UTP legislation, and continues to work on behalf of stakeholders along the agrifood supply chain. In relation to its price and market analysis role, the regulator reported that while the majority of operators had submitted all information requested, a number of operators failed to comply with its requests for information on a voluntary basis. As a result, in December 2025, I signed new regulations to fulfil the programme for Government commitment to confer on the Agri-Food Regulator enhanced powers to compel price and market information from businesses to deliver additional transparency in the agrifood supply chain.
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The price of beef-----
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It is ironic that we are standing here dealing with a question about transparency, the Agri-Food Regulator and the importance for farmers of having transparency-----
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-----when the farm organisation that is currently protesting outside Bord Bia is denying-----
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Hold on now, the Deputy wants to-----
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The heckling is a Sinn Féin trick. Let us park that one for a minute. The farm organisation currently protesting outside Bord Bia is refusing to allow its county executive chairs and the chairs of its commodities committees to receive the detailed briefing from that very chair about the nature of that deal that is being conflated and sold in a soundbite way to farmers. No wonder farmers are upset the way it is being sold to them, and the way the Deputy and others have sold this to them. There is a level of detail there. Once the board of Bord Bia received that briefing, 12 of its 14 members found it absolutely acceptable because-----
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-----that specific trade deal is worth hundreds of millions of euro to Irish farmers and to our industry. The chairman of Bord Bia has overseen exponential growth in the value of Irish food exports year on year-----
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When the CSO figures come out in the next couple of weeks, we will see more record growth. This is money going straight into farmers' pockets. They benefit from the integrated nature of global supply chains.
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For once, I agree with the Deputy on something. Responsibility for confidence in Bord Bia is spread broadly. It is not on any one entity or farming organisation. Deputy Kenny also has responsibility. The soundbites he is coming out with here, which lack information and are designed to whip farmers up, are also undermining Bord Bia.
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The IFA's rash decision not to listen to the explanation and to rush straight out to protest - it had its mind made up before the meeting that it was going to do that - has also played a considerable part in damaging Bord Bia's reputation. We all have to work to rebuild that reputation. That does not mean getting a head on a plate. Government does not operate by mob rule in such scenarios. I will leave it at that, because this question was supposed to be about the agrifood regulator, which is a very important issue. That will take time. This is novel legislation. We are going further than the rest of Europe. This is about providing the transparency that some others are denying to farmers.
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I am delighted to have the opportunity to discuss a matter of real substance and of real consequence for farmers for this year and from 2028 to 2034. The decisions we make this year and going into next year will be absolutely critical. I look forward to engaging with the Deputy and colleagues on the Oireachtas joint committee and to working in the very collaborative way we have done for the past year. Members on all sides of this House have delivered. While not everyone is of the same perspective regarding the approach I have taken, we have largely delivered for our agriculture sector on major matters like TB reforms and fixing issues with ACRES. I have had support from around the House in doing those things. I have also been held to account, which is only right. I have also had support on the nitrates derogation and the steps I took to defend farmers' interests by opposing the Mercosur deal. Farming is in a better place because of the work we have done together over the last year. Nowhere will that be more important than in the context of the CAP. We will have to make loads of small decisions. Last week, we spent three and half hours in a committee meeting discussing a range of different measures and how this will turn out. At the heart of the question are the decisions that are to be made on the multi-annual financial framework, MFF, which is the overall budget for Europe. As the Deputy outlined, we do not have a sufficient amount of money ring-fenced for the CAP. It is not that the decisions we make will be academic, but they will absolutely be impacted by how big a slice of the cake the agriculture sector gets. If the CAP gets less, that will be a major issue. I have raised this consistently at every meeting of the AGRIFISH Council. Commissioner Hansen wants the same thing as us. He wants more funding in that area. I said last summer that the 80% that has been ring-fenced is a starting point we can build on. There is also a proposal regarding a national regional partnership plans structure. As I again raised in Brussels last Monday, some of the constraints within that structure are concerning. The percentage for social cohesion could impact our ability to use that mechanism with absolute flexibility. There is also the question of how the rural clause 10% will be used in the end. These are key decisions that have not yet been made. With regard to the overall amount of money, we need a CAP that is sufficiently funded.
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The overall level of funding will obviously be dictated by the negotiations on the MFF by the Heads of State and Government. The Departments of Finance and foreign affairs are the lead Departments in these negotiations, in consultation with the Department of the Taoiseach. Ireland's position is very clear. We cannot support a weakening of the CAP budget. Our priority in the negotiations is to secure an adequate overall budget and a CAP that is simpler, fairer and sufficiently flexible to respond to economic, social and environmental needs. I will continue to engage actively with the Commission, the European Parliament and other member states to ensure Ireland's interests are fully reflected as discussions progress. On the Deputy's specific point about entitlements, these are key decisions that we will have to make but, right now, there is no provision for entitlements. This is not a major issue for most member states because most of them have fully flattened and converged payments, as discussed at Cabinet last week. We have to make decisions on what to fight for. If we did get entitlements back as part of our element of flexibility, it would probably be conditional on further movement on convergence. These are the types of negotiations and discussions we need to continue to have. We will be able to make decisions in some areas earlier but others will take a bit more time.
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I share the Deputy's concerns about simplification. Historically, we have seen complication. You see this with measures coming forward from Brussels, particularly from directorates general other than DG AGRI. We have the carbon border adjustment mechanism, CBAM, and we had the EU deforestation regulation. Those proposals came from a good place but their practical impact on farming and so on had not been fully considered. We then had to unpick some of those measures. We discussed CBAM for a considerable length of time on Monday. The Presidency of the EU in the second half of his year, when I will chair the AGRIFISH Council, which comprises me and the 26 other ministers for agriculture, gives us a huge opportunity to shape discussions. I am on record as having stated clearly before that I really do want to deliver simplification. If our budget is going to be constrained, or even if we get it up to 100%, the purchasing power of those funds in 2028 and 2029 will be very different from what it was in 2021. That is a challenge for us. Ultimately, simplification means fewer schemes. It means the greatest amount of money possible is directed at farmers and that it is not tied up in bureaucratic schemes. The Deputy mentioned ACRES. I am very proud of the work my Department and I did to address those issues. It is operating like a perfectly normal scheme now, with more than 96% of farmers paid. On the record of the House, just to clarify, almost €750 million has been paid to farmers since 2023 through this environmental scheme. This is a serious success in supporting our farmers in the work they do.
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