Speaking at the All-Island State Veterinarians' Scientific Conference in Limerick on Friday morning, Minister Noonan said he is pleased with the impact the changes he introduced in last year’s budget is having on the farm sector.

“From my point of view, and from talking to Simon Coveney, the biggest contribution I could make was to make the tax system more amenable,” Minister Noonan said before adding “so we did a full review of [the tax system] and we had the full cooperation of the farmers and of the 12 recommendations, we've implemented 10 of them so far.

“The one that’s causing most excitement is the leasing to move from conacre to long-term leasing. Seemingly there are a lot of meetings happening around the country and the whole plan is taking off."

Minister Noonan said that since he took office in 2011, agriculture has played a pivotal role in the recovery of the Irish economy.

“The strategy [when Fine Gael and Labour came to power in 2011] was to get away from trying to grow the economy on one sector – building and developments. So the two sectors we started with were tourism and farming,” he said.

Six months out from the next national budget in October, how does Minister Noonan expect the agriculture side of the budget to look.

“We’re six months out now... What we’ll do is meet with the various interest groups including the IFA and the ICMSA. They’ll all come with a list of what they want and we’ll look at those lists and make decisions after that,” he said