The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) has said farmers will be “disappointed” the issue of income volatility has not been dealt with in Budget 2025.
Next year’s budget was announced in the Dáil today (Tuesday, October 1) but Minister for Finance Jack Chambers stated that he was “keen to advance an income volatility measure to support the farming sector for consideration in advance of next year’s budget”.
Therefore, president of ICMSA, Denis Drennan, said that farmers would be “disappointed that the long-standing and crippling issue of ruinous income volatility has not been dealt with in Budget 2025″.
Drennan welcomed the minister’s commitment to deal with the issue in Budget 2026, but he said that a “solemn undertaking” needs to be given if the confusion on the matter is to be cleared up.
Drennan said: “Income volatility is the biggest challenge facing the farm sector, it is completely entwined with the question of the transition to low emissions farming and investment
“It is bluntly disappointing that the government did not deliver on its commitment contained in the original programme for government commitment.
“We have showed the government several ‘off-the-shelf’ volatility-mitigation measures that we adopted specifically to address the Irish situation.
“This question just has to be addressed in Budget 2026, regardless of who is in government and we will continue to push the obvious solution to an endemic problem.”
Drennan welcomed the extension of a number of reliefs to 2027, and regarding measures to improve the position of farmers in the land market, he said that ICMSA welcomed the focus on the issue that has high net worth non-farmers using farm relief measures to avoid various inheritance tax measures.
But the ICMSA President said that the association will await the publication of the Finance Bill before passing judgement on the measures announced today
“We are not completely convinced that the measures announced by Minister Chambers actually get to the heart of what’s been going on and how to deal with it and have concerns there could be unintended consequences.”
On the expenditure side, the ICMSA welcomed the doubling of the budget for the Dairy Beef Scheme which Drennan, said was “an obvious, right and environmentally sound step in the right direction” and the ICMSA president said that the funding should go to the people rearing the calves.
He added that it was already obvious that further funding will be required in future years “if we are to realise the economic and environmental potential of dairy beef production.
“On a wider note, there’s a lot of general and non-targeted improvements in allowances, reliefs and thresholds, and farmers will benefit in common with all citizens and taxpayers.
Drennan said the association would like to see further details around the measures being taken to address non-farmers using farm relief measures to pass on non-farming wealth to successors.
Reflecting on the announcmeents today, Drennan said the ICMSA “welcomes the overall positivity of the budget.
“The fact that it has at least signalled the fact that it knows that our farming, and the wider agri-sector that rests on farming, needs active support and not just a kind of benevolent neutrality.
“That change in attitude needs to be turned into concrete measures,” Drennan said.