Sinn Féin's spokesperson on agriculture has claimed that Budget 2026, which was announced yesterday (Tuesday, October 7), will leave farmers "out of pocket".

Sligo-Leitrim TD Martin Kenny said the budget "does nothing" for farmers and claims it in fact "only takes money out of their pockets".

While he said that farmers should now be "relieved and thankful" that current schemes have not been cut to fund changes to the TB Eradication Programme, the TD said that "the reality is that farmers will be out of pocket as a result of today’s budget with the reduction in the flat rate addition for VAT from 5.1% to 4.5%".

According to Kenny, this could cost farmers up to €60 million this year.

He also suggested that the amount of new money put towards TB is not enough.

"We all know that bovine TB is out of control and has been for years as a result of inaction by this government and previous governments. The government has under-budgeted for the TB programme since 2020 and they have done so again [yesterday].

“The cost of implementing the new bovine TB eradication programme for 2026 will be €181.7 million according to the department’s own calculations," Kenny said.

On the additional €20 million put towards the Agri Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) for 2026, Kenny claimed this is "an insult to farmers when we still have farmers who have not received their payments for the ACRES scheme and no farmer has received payment for non-productive investments (NPIs) that they applied for in 2023".

He said: "This budget should have gone a lot further to support farming and the agriculture sector."

"Farmers will be very disappointed with this budget as they know there are a lot of obstacles coming down the line with the [EU-Mercosur Trade Deal] and the 22% cut in the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] budget," Kenny added.