Local farmers are lobbying politicians in Dublin later today.
Seven IFA representatives are part of a delegation trying to drum up support for farmers in the Budget ahead of the winter.
They are scheduled to meet all five Carlow-Kilkenny TDs and are hoping to speak to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance.
Bill O’Keeffe is on the Kilkenny IFA business committee – he says the energy crisis is creating a lot of worry; “Very scary place as regards energy at the moment on farm I mean ESB, in particular, I suppose it could, depending on what contract you’re on when you’re coming off contract you could be looking at three or four hundred per cent increase in your energy costs and I suppose for larger dairy farms probably looking at eight to ten thousand a year cost up to now and you’re probably looking at multiples of that going forward then, it’s going to be a huge issue”.
He adds that we “Could be looking at increases in you know multiples of ten thousand of increases in energy costs over the next couple of years and that’s just on the ESB side, the whole gas situation has a huge knock-on effect for farmers in terms of fertiliser and even just using gas, fertiliser costs are up over 200% and rising weekly or daily at the moment and I suppose green diesel is up 100%”.
