Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has outlined the steps farmers and contractors need to take to apply for the new Fuel Support Scheme.

The details of the scheme were announced today (Wednesday, April 29) by the minister.

The scheme has a budget of €100 million, €15 million of which is ringfenced for the fisheries and agriculture sector, and the rest of which will be targeted at farmers and agriculture and forestry contractors.

Agriland spokes to Minister Heydon today at the launch of the scheme, with the minister outlining the application process for farmers and contractors.

The minister also commented on significant developments this week on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Minister Heydon said: "My €100 million support scheme for farmers and contractors will open for applications from next week. Farmers will be able to apply through AgFood.

"It'll be a very straightforward system, where they tick a box similar to the tillage scheme previously," the minister added, referring to the support package that was announced for the tillage sector earlier this year.

"The detail [the farmers] will need is their fuel usage throughout all of 2025. My department officials will then calculate the five months usage on that basis," he explained.

The scheme will make payment at a support rate equivalent to 20c/L, or €200 per 1,000L, based on their usage in 2025.

The system will work slightly differently for contractors.

The minister said: "For farm contractors it will be a paper based system, but again it will be very simple, and they will attach last year's fuel receipts to that application.

"My intention is to keep the applications open for about four weeks, to pay farmers and farm contractors by the end of June," he added.

CAP

The minister also reacted to the developments this week in the European Parliament on CAP, in which MEPs voted on its position for the next EU budget for 2027 to 2034.

Yesterday, (Tuesday, April 28), a full session of the European Parliament voted to back funding for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) at around the 2022-2027 level, and to take account of inflation.

The vote is a rejection of the proposals put forward by the European Commission last summer, which envisaged a 20% cut in CAP funding.

The minister was asked if there was similar support among his agriculture minister counterparts in the Council of the EU for a similar position on CAP, with Ireland set to take over the presidency of the council on July 1.

While Ireland holds the presidency, Minister Heydon will chair the monthly meetings of EU agriculture ministers.

Minister Heydon said: "I was in Strasbourg yesterday, I met with a number of MEPs, the rapporteur of the key [European Parliament] committee ahead of of us taking over the agriculture presidency on July 1. That was following my meeting of the [council] in Luxembourg on Monday.

"I want to see more money. This is obviously a very strong aspiration from the parliament, which I share, but actually finding that money will be a challenge and it is something we're continuing to work on to make sure we can increase the ringfenced amount of money for CAP as well, which is critical for our farmers," the minister added.