Diesel crisis pushing contractors to the brink - Mayo TD

MAYO Deputy Paul Lawless has issued a stark warning that agricultural and forestry contractors across Ireland are being 'driven to the wall' by the spiralling diesel crisis, accusing the government of 'wilfully ignoring the very people who keep Irish agriculture alive'.

The scale of the crisis, he said, is now impossible to dismiss.

Contractors are facing diesel cost increases of up to 70%, with a single tractor fill costing €237 more than before.

A full silage-cutting operation, involving tractors, trailers, harvesters, loaders and mowers, now carries an additional €3,240 per job, he explained. Across the sector, the burden has ballooned to an estimated €244 million.

“These are not the grumblings of a few,” he said. “These are the cold, unforgiving figures faced by the very people who cut our silage, harvest our crops, and keep food production moving. When their engines fall silent, the entire country feels it.”

He criticised the government’s response, saying the 3 cent excise reduction and 2 cent NORA adjustment 'would barely keep a strimmer going, never mind a fleet of heavy machinery'.

Contractors, he said, are being treated as though they are peripheral to the food chain when in reality they are its beating heart.

And the consequences of the crisis extend far beyond the contractors themselves. “When the cost of harvesting silage rises, the cost of feeding cattle rises. When the cost of feeding cattle rises, the price of meat rises. And when the cost of producing crops increases, the price of food on every supermarket shelf follows suit,” he said.

“This is not just a contractor’s crisis, it is a food-chain crisis.”

The government, he continued, must now act decisively. This includes convening an urgent meeting between the Association of Farm & Forestry Contractors in Ireland (FCI) and the Ministers for Agriculture and Finance, suspending carbon tax for the duration of the crisis, providing targeted diesel supports, examining a diesel price cap for essential agricultural operations, and formally recognising contractors as essential service providers within the national food system.