Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue would like to continue his role post an upcoming cabinet reshuffle at the end of the year and into the next general election.

“I’ve worked hard over the last two years to try and support and back family farms in that process through national policy and it’s definitely something that I would like to continue to do, post the reshuffle and post December up to the next election, if it was at all possible.

“That’s something that will be a matter for the Taoiseach obviously but it’s something that I would be honoured to continue to do, to carry out that work,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal.

The coalition cabinet is set to see some form of reshuffle at the end of 2022 when current Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar becomes Taoiseach and current Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin becomes Tánaiste. The extent of the cabinet reshuffle this role swap might cause is, however, not yet clear.

Outlining his desire to continue to hold the agricultural brief, Minister McConalogue said he “definitely would, absolutely” like to remain in his current position.

Sinn Féin and farmers

On Sinn Féin’s ability to deliver for farmers, the minister said he has seen “nothing from them that would indicate that they have any emphasis in relation to farm policy or prioritisation of agriculture”.

He said: “No, I certainly don’t think they can [deliver for farmers]. I think if we look to their manifesto at the last election, it was the weakest manifesto of all the parties in relation to the investment commitments that they made at that time for what they’d do in agriculture.

“And even though they were committing to spend much more than other parties, in general, it was weak and I haven’t seen any new initiatives coming from them either in opposition,” he said.

Minister McConalogue said his “key priority is putting forward our own platform in relation to working hard and prioritising agriculture and prioritising rural Ireland and that’s something you want to be in Government to do and I think it is something we are doing”.

He said he wants to continue to deliver for farmers “for the next couple of years” and acknowledged that “the public will then make the decision as to what happens after that”.

Fianna Fáil’s offering

On Fianna Fáil’s offering to the farmers, McConalogue said his party has focused on “family farm incomes”, “a fair CAP that’s really well funded” and the “challenges [farmers] are experiencing” such as the fodder crisis, and “the various CAP schemes that have been introduced” such as ACRES.

“That’s something we’ve put a key focus on, represented by the 50% increase in the national funding in CAP, for the new CAP programme. I think we are delivering in Government and our focus then in terms of the next election will be to ensure that over the next two plus years we continue to deliver.

“When it gets to the next election, we can point out what we have been working on and continue to seek a mandate on the back of that in terms of a new manifesto,” he said.