On Tuesday, the European Commissioner for Budget Piotr Serafin accompanied Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen to Dáil Éireann to meet with the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs.
It was a unique opportunity for Ireland to advance the case for a CAP budget, that at least attempts to provide funding to maintain farm incomes through the next decade. Because ultimately, the current CAP proposals will decimate the livelihoods of drystock and tillage farmers.
Dairy farming might cope better with the proposed 20% cut in farm supports, but all sectors will ultimately be disadvantaged.
And while the farm organisations will have made these points forcefully to the two commissioners, both men and their entourage will have been aware of the current stand-off over Larry Murrin’s chairmanship of Bord Bia.
If politics is all about the squeaky door, they may have concluded that farmers are more exercised about that undeniably significant issue than they are about a reduced CAP budget.
A CAP budget that will be €44bn for the 27-member state EU for each year from 2028 to 2035, when it was €50bn a year back in 1992, when there were only 12 EEC members, and half as much farming.
The last week has seen the rhetoric heat up significantly, with Martin Heydon speaking of a “witch hunt”, Murrin describing the IFA’s stance as “emotional nonsense”, Francie Gorman saying “Larry Murrin and his supporters are taking farmers for fools” and Bord Bia stating that farmers entered Bord Bia’s offices “under false pretences”.
Larry Murrin, the chair of Bord Bia since 2024, is facing calls for his resignation in the wake of the revelation that the company he is CEO of, Dawn Farm Foods, imported beef from Brazil in 2025. \ Claire Nash
After all that heat, perhaps today (Thursday) will see some light, when Murrin appears before the Agriculture Committee. It will be the first time he will feel any direct pressure from people who have said he should step down. That includes TDs from both the opposition and Government benches, farm organisation representatives in the public gallery, and more farmers at the gates of Dáil Éireann, or as close as they are let to Kildare Street. There has been a complete stalemate for two weeks, and if that hasn’t affected Irish agriculture’s ability to best push for a better CAP outcome, it will soon.
That is not a criticism of the IFA’s action; farmers right across the country have lost trust in Bord Bia under Murrin’s chairmanship.
But some movement is required from some side, and soon.
Trust needs to be rebuilt for Bord Bia to function as the auditors of quality assurance on Ireland’s farms.
The sooner this impasse is resolved, the sooner we can focus on CAP, which will be a defining pillar of Irish farming for the next decade. And as it stands it won’t keep the building standing.
On Tuesday, the European Commissioner for Budget Piotr Serafin accompanied Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen to Dáil Éireann to meet with the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs.
It was a unique opportunity for Ireland to advance the case for a CAP budget, that at least attempts to provide funding to maintain farm incomes through the next decade. Because ultimately, the current CAP proposals will decimate the livelihoods of drystock and tillage farmers.
Dairy farming might cope better with the proposed 20% cut in farm supports, but all sectors will ultimately be disadvantaged.
And while the farm organisations will have made these points forcefully to the two commissioners, both men and their entourage will have been aware of the current stand-off over Larry Murrin’s chairmanship of Bord Bia.
If politics is all about the squeaky door, they may have concluded that farmers are more exercised about that undeniably significant issue than they are about a reduced CAP budget.
A CAP budget that will be €44bn for the 27-member state EU for each year from 2028 to 2035, when it was €50bn a year back in 1992, when there were only 12 EEC members, and half as much farming.
The last week has seen the rhetoric heat up significantly, with Martin Heydon speaking of a “witch hunt”, Murrin describing the IFA’s stance as “emotional nonsense”, Francie Gorman saying “Larry Murrin and his supporters are taking farmers for fools” and Bord Bia stating that farmers entered Bord Bia’s offices “under false pretences”.
Larry Murrin, the chair of Bord Bia since 2024, is facing calls for his resignation in the wake of the revelation that the company he is CEO of, Dawn Farm Foods, imported beef from Brazil in 2025. \ Claire Nash
After all that heat, perhaps today (Thursday) will see some light, when Murrin appears before the Agriculture Committee. It will be the first time he will feel any direct pressure from people who have said he should step down. That includes TDs from both the opposition and Government benches, farm organisation representatives in the public gallery, and more farmers at the gates of Dáil Éireann, or as close as they are let to Kildare Street. There has been a complete stalemate for two weeks, and if that hasn’t affected Irish agriculture’s ability to best push for a better CAP outcome, it will soon.
That is not a criticism of the IFA’s action; farmers right across the country have lost trust in Bord Bia under Murrin’s chairmanship.
But some movement is required from some side, and soon.
Trust needs to be rebuilt for Bord Bia to function as the auditors of quality assurance on Ireland’s farms.
The sooner this impasse is resolved, the sooner we can focus on CAP, which will be a defining pillar of Irish farming for the next decade. And as it stands it won’t keep the building standing.
SHARING OPTIONS