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The Land Mobility Service has welcomed today’s publication of the Commission on Generational Renewal’s report, while warning that delivery and funding of proven solutions will be critical to ensuring farming’s future. Service Manager Patrick Brady said the report highlights challenges that farmers and policymakers have long known: a lack of land access, succession barriers, and the urgent need to support the next generation. “There’s no need for the Government to reinvent the wheel. We have the service, it works, it works very well, just fund it,” said Brady. The Land Mobility Service, which has successfully facilitated over one thousand farm...

Macra National President, Josephine O’Neill, has today welcomed the long-awaited report of the Commission on Generational Renewal, describing it as a landmark for the future of Irish farming. While hopeful about the recommendations, she stressed that they must now be backed by action. “The publication of this report is a positive and necessary step,” O’Neill outlined. “For too long, the challenges facing young farmers have been spoken about but not acted on. This report lays out real, practical measures that could transform opportunities for the next generation. But unless they are delivered, they remain only words on paper.” Among the...

Macra National President, Josephine O’Neill, has today sounded the alarm on the declining number of young farmers across Ireland, warning that the future of Irish agriculture and rural life depends on reversing this trend. “In recent decades, we have seen a worrying fall in the number of young people entering farming,” stated O’Neill. “The average age of Irish farmers continues to rise, yet across the country, we meet young men and women who want nothing more than to build a life on the land. The problem is not a lack of ambition—it is the barriers that stand in their way.”...

Make the Moove is a mental health initiative, kindly supported by FBD, which started in North Tipperary Macra in 2018 to help combat and raise awareness around suicide in the farming community. Since 2018, Make the Moove has grown from strength to strength, offering subsidised counselling, awareness talks, training, and more recently a Crisis Response Team (CRT). Over the next four weeks, Make the Moove will roll our a new campaign called "Ewe Go", which offers a pack to be sent out to people with two helpline cards and Revive active sachets. Macra National President, Josephine O’Neill, explains the objectives...

Macra welcomes recent comments by the Tánaiste Simon Harris that more needs to be done on succession as part of Budget 2026. At the recent Tullamore Show, the Tánaiste spoke with Macra representatives and also indicated that he would expect the upcoming budget to show movement in the area of generational renewal and succession.Macra National President Josephine O'Neill welcomed the comments by the Tánaiste and reiterated her comments that “generational renewal must become a key issue for our government, to ensure a future for our young farmers and for rural Ireland. Our government must now show that this was not...