That went by in a hurry. It only seems like a week ago that 2024 began, with a cohort of shiny new farm leaders and the 220kg/ha nitrates derogation limit being applied.And now here we are kissing 2024 goodbye, with the Government on the way out with the year, although the incoming administration will look very familiar.
That went by in a hurry. It only seems like a week ago that 2024 began, with a cohort of shiny new farm leaders and the 220kg/ha nitrates derogation limit being applied.
And now here we are kissing 2024 goodbye, with the Government on the way out with the year, although the incoming administration will look very familiar.
That said, a lot of familiar faces have departed. Leo Varadkar, Simon Coveney, Heather Humphreys, Michaels Creed and Ring, Richard Bruton, Damien English, Paul Kehoe, John Paul Phelan, Josepha Madigan and Joe Carey all retired from politics for Fine Gael alone.
It looks like politicians might have failed to reinstate a retirement scheme for farmers, but they must have a decent one for themselves.
Jackie Cahill is the most notable Fianna Fáil retiree, with Stephen Donnelly falling foul of the Harris hop, which turned out to be more local than national in the end.
As for the Green Party, farmers won’t have them to kick around any more. Roderic O’Gorman is now the sole TD for the party.
The blame for all farming’s ills can no longer be laid at the door of the Green Party, not by farmers and not by either of the main coalition partners.
Independent Ireland now finds itself at a crossroads.
It has doubled its Dáil representation through 2024, Michael Fitzmaurice having joined early in the year before. It also had a successful June, winning 23 council seats, as many as the Green Party, and getting Ciaran Mullooly elected to the European Parliament.
However, with Ken O’Flynn as its only new TD, the party was quickly sidelined in Government formation talks, with the regional independents now set for Government.
They will be a strong voice for farmers on the opposition benches, but need to avoid being pigeonholed as Ireland’s answer to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party.
On the farming front, we have seen both Francie Gorman and Denis Drennan establish themselves as clear-thinking and straight-talking, in what proved to be a difficult year enough for farming.
Gorman formed a Laois alliance with his grain chair Kieran McEvoy and, more notably, Grain Growers chair Bobby Miller, to overcome the years biggest storm in a tillage field, the suspension of the Straw Incorporation Measure.
The three combined to force Charlie McConalogue to turn off the scheme-chopper on his combine. Instead, he created a new parallel scheme.
It was that kind of year, complicated, but with something for everyone in the end.
Wishing you all a happy Christmas and best wishes for 2025.
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