A Fianna Fáil motion on assisting farmers hit by the fodder crisis is set to go to a vote in the Dáil on Thursday 19 April.

The motion calls on the Government to immediately bring forward a hardship fund, a meal voucher scheme, low-cost loans as well as issuing balancing payments for outstanding 2017 RDP schemes such as GLAS and sheep welfare. It also calls for a temporary halt to on-farm inspections and Bord Bia audits.

Fianna Fáil agricultural spokesperson Charlie McConologue estimated that it would cost only €1.5m to fund the meal voucher scheme. He also stated that a hardship fund could be provided through de-minimus funding, due to a Department of Agriculture underspend, and it would help to relieve credit issues for farmers facing increased meal costs after the spring.

Introducing the motion to the Dáil on Tuesday night, McConologue told Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed: “We know you can’t control the weather, but what you need to be able to do is have a sense for what is happening on the ground and be able to respond to it and show leadership.”

However, Minister Creed said he does not accept the “premise of the motion that serves a particular political narrative that I have been slow to react and I don’t accept last September, October that this was a crisis that we could envisage for April of this year. I want to make that point that we in the Department have acted at all times in appropriate and measured ways as this story evolved.”

The Minister was called upon to revise Food Wise 2025 targets in light of the fodder difficulties.

“We are dealing with the visual personification of that challenge and it’s uncomfortable and it’s something that we will have to deal with,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Sinn Féin, Labour and Independent TDs present on Tuesday night agreed with much of what the motion proposed.

“We will be supporting the motion. This fodder crisis has been going on for a very long time,” Sinn Féin’s Martin Kenny said, adding that the Government should look at solutions to avoid this situation in future, such as a land drainage incentive.