Victor Boyhan on tillage funding split and Bovine TV report

Thank you very much. Welcome Minister, it is good to see you in the House. It is always good to have the opportunity to talk about agriculture and I am not going to repeat all of the 11 asks that Fine Gael have put in the private member's bill. I want to thank them for bringing the private member's business before us today, but all of those are of course in the programme for government. There is nothing contentious about any of that, so well done and I wish you all well in pursuing your colleagues in government for its implementation. Cut and paste it today and every line of that was in the government, so there is not any dispute over that and the government are hopefully here for a few years to stay and have plenty of time to implement it. I wish everyone genuinely everyone well, but I want to single out some key issues about agriculture that are pertinent to this debate. I am going to use my time wisely. I want to thank the IFA, the ICMSA, the ICSA and various other farm organisations for their collective collaboration and advocacy in terms of their field. There were a number of senators here on the agricultural panel, including my Agricultural Committee, Joint Oireachtas Committee, and we have just come from a reasonably robust debate, as always, in agriculture and politics in relation to tillage. And, but before I do that Minister, I want to turn to, no I will deal with the tillage first. You will be aware of the Killershee Hotel, there was a vast number of people that came out ministered to the heart of your own constituency in South Caldera and articulated many views on the tillage sector, so I am not going to go into those at great length. There is somewhat conflicting views between the IFA and the grain organisation, the Irish grain growers, in relation to the sort of funding that they want the IFA advocating today for 65 million and the Irish grain growers advocating for 92 million per annum over five years. So there is a big difference between those two figures and they are both representative groups of the sector. So that is a big bridge to cross and a big challenge for you. But I suppose one of the key takeaways I tried to cut to the chase and I said to both of them today in the committee less than an hour ago, give me three key issues that you want us to achieve for you and the sector. That we don't need chapter and verse and we can write books about policy, we just simplify it, come give us a simple message, give us a simple takeaway. And one of the things that was repeated by everybody was the report on the food vision 2030 and the importance and significance of the objectives that you and others have signed up to and are committed to in relation to the tillage group and how that will be rolled out. Now I am familiar that there was a dashboard and I want to commend you and your department for putting the dashboard in place. So I just want to give you that, drop that back into you, you will know about it anyway. But I think it is important and I want to reiterate that commitment. But I also think there are some other key messages and I want to share with them too. They talk about the ask and I have said all about that and I have to say the Irish grain growers, they are very crystal clear on what they are asking. You have clearly had discussions with them. But they raised the issue about the quality of this gold standard grain and this is pertinent of course to distilleries and the branding and the marketing of this unique gold standard grain for Ireland and that is added value and that is important. Now we see of course the challenges around the American market, we see the challenges around tariffs, but how can we differentiate? And of course we have challenges with the imports of other grains. Of course we do not produce enough grain for our own needs in terms of feed and everything. You know all of that so I am not going to go into any great detail about it. Just to advocate also, I think we need to look at tax reliefs and there is a great expectation of you as Minister. Indeed some of your parliamentary colleagues spoke about you and your work and the expectation on you to deliver for farmers, but that is a matter for you and I do not expect you to talk about the budgetary matters here today, but just to say I think that is important. The next thing I want to turn to, because I want to make an ask, I like to go into talks myself and make an ask, and I want to make an ask of you, and it is this, it relates to the Controller Auditor General. He issued a report today or yesterday, but I had a look at it today, and chapter 14 is about Bovine TV eradication programme. There are many critical aspects to it, they are hard-reaching, they are factual, it is a very important and significant office in terms of the monitoring of government performances, departmental performances, should I say, but what is clear there is these four recommendations, and the recommendations are clear that the department should review its targets of eradication in order to ensure it remains appropriate and realistic and a revised long-term timeline for the eradication. The department should consider designing a comprehensive set of performance measures which are achievable and relevant to the strategic aims of the Bovine TV eradication programme. The department should consider adaptation measures such as an alignment of the payments of compensation to effective biosecurity measures, and finally the department should ensure that it is in full compliance with the minimum requirements of Pacific S158 2015, and it goes on. But I suppose really what is interesting is the responses from your department, and your department say in your responses again in this report that circulates to all OCTUS members in the last 24 hours, and it talks about first quarter of 2026, to look at them. I am not criticising that, but what I am asking Minister, will you take on board the need for resources to deal with this matter, funding, because there will be funding, there are resources, there are clearly commitments in this document, and you are given a commitment, and that is great, and it is the first of 2026, the first quarter. So I leave you with this. That is my ask, that you would keep the focus on, keep the resources in place, to deliver for the Controller Order General what are reasonable requests in relation to the Bovine TV eradication programme. Thank you for your time.