So what are you hoping for on budget day for 2027?

I suppose, uh, li- listening to the, the, the two, the two, uh, deputies here talking about, about, say, people, farmers are people as well.

Farm families are part of society.

They have inflationary pressures as well.

They also have, say, inflationary pressures with fuel, fertilizer, feed, which, which are running, even before the, the fuel protests or just at the start, were running at about 50%, which is way ahead.

Agri inflation is probably running at 50% compared with general inflation at about 7%.

So we have those pressures, and we see that, that the, the trouble in, in, in the Straits of Hormuz is not, is not going to end any, anytime soon.

Can this state compensate for that?

Joe give us the lowdown please what is occurring

Tomorrow the EU are going to ban beef and poultry imports from Brazil based on a public health issue around antimicrobial resistance and the irregular use of antibiotics in beef and poultry in Brazil.

And this, I suppose, was exposed by the IFA and the Irish Farmers Journal last September, October, when they travelled Adam Woods and Thomas Burke travelled 3,000 kilometres across Brazil, and they could buy antibiotics in hardware shops as easy as you can buy a bar of chocolate here.

with no herd number, no animal tag numbers, etc.

That report was brought back and presented to the EU Commissioner, Oliver Verhaele, who is the Health Commissioner, and that has got the wheel in motion that we're at the point tomorrow where beef and lamb from Brazil is going to be banned from use in the EU.

Is it going to ensure a little hike in beef prices for us? Or what would the bigger picture say?

Yeah, well, in the period from January to June 2025, there was 30,000 tonnes of beef imported into the EU.

In 2026, that increased to 47,000 tonne.

It is significant.

It is significant.

And I suppose the jobs aren't maybe all in one factory.

They're kind of spread throughout the whole area, the whole county.

Be it the whole way from Shannon Bridge to Eden Derry.

And within that, you have farmers, you have agribusinesses, you have farm stores, you have farm machinery companies.

So there's a lot of people, say, dependent and working out of the industry.

Well, we were talking only last week about fodder and... yes a very good sustained period of rain would make a huge difference to farmers but that's somewhat out of control at the moment

Were you growing up? Where'd you grow up? What was the family like? Was faith stuff a thing, not a thing? Entrepreneurial stuff a thing, not a thing? Tell us about the family.

Yeah, I grew up in Minnesota.

Texas has been home for 16 years now.

And while I don't like Texas summers, I like them better than Minnesota winters.

And so, but yeah, I grew up in Minnesota and I think I had a genuine faith transaction with Jesus around six, seven, eight years old.

I don't remember the exact day or time, but I don't really have a conscious memory of not believing, man, I'm a sinner in need of a savior.

That said, from call it six to 22, man, I was a little Pharisee in training.

financially.

What was the event like?

Man, it's a crazy story that we were, let's see.

So we moved to Waco in 2020 during, there's this small kind of local event called COVID happened.

I don't think it hit too many people, but no, yeah.

Worldwide event, COVID happens.

And even moving to Waco, that's a longer, different story for another day.

The short version is we loved the home we were in in Dallas, the church we were at in Dallas, my job, like everything.

That's the question I want to start with.