Martin Daly: Why the State Must Back a Hemp Industry

I'm no expert in anything other than I'm a qualified doctor so I'm not a farmer I'm not an agricultural expert a building expert or that but I met Eugene and Raymond there and I heard their story and they explained the story of hemp very well to me and it took my interest on a whole range of levels and again I'm not going to rehash what everyone has said here because you're all experts in this but it seems absolutely crazy to me that there is some impediment to developing this industry in Ireland given all of the benefits in terms of farming, crop rotation, cash crop for farmers especially in the west of Ireland where there isn't as much tillage and this crop can grow pretty much in any land but a good rotation crop I'm told for even better land in other parts of the country and the inability to get grant aid for decortication from what I gather and you know not joining the dots with industry and demand and our experts here are telling us that these this building materials that can come out of both the bast and the herd or shiv if I'm right is that they're the right terminology and so everyone's in the room here but there's no link and it needs the state it really does need the state and I wouldn't always say that but it needs the state on this occasion to join that link the question I'd like to ask I mean I spoke to you before Eugene I mean it would appear that there's some sort of prejudice against this plant because it is of the cannabis family even though industrial hemp is a completely different entity to the cannabis plant that's grown to produce drugs so that seems to be the first thing and it would seem that even dealing with state agencies to get a grant that is a question mark over it would I be fair to say that could I throw that to you there Eugene? Yes you yes you would because we like and we're just coming up with a block consistently when we're trying to when we're applying for grant. Have you applied for a grant? We have we have to Patrick Daly, Patrick Daly has did the Just Transition Fund there a few months ago a few six or eight months ago and we missed out on that even though we had a very very very strong application and we missed out on that and we are convinced that it was a bias against hemp that caused that. And was the proposition that you would have a decortication plant you were going to have farmers who would grow under license and that you had industry set up to take the decorticated material into industry and produce? And produce, to hemp block, to juice, to import, you know. But I just can't understand like for the West of Ireland we're talking about West Roscommon is it? East Galway, wherever you want to call it. But I mean it's the West of Ireland that something like that that's exactly what Just Transition Funding is supposed to be for. To create jobs, to create an agri-economy, to support it, to support our farming communities and our farming network of communities but we're seeing depopulation, we don't see enough industry and that support isn't coming through. So it's to me, so has anyone spoken to the Department of Agriculture here about this? Yeah I mean it all boils back down to the fact that hemp itself is a schedule one narcotic under the Misuse of Drugs Act and that was amended in I think 2017. So it was subject to applicable licence but they had a special amendment that the fibre and the herd could still be used but it was still the ambiguity around it and it caused confusion as I mentioned in the opening statement, not only for myself when I was in customs and excise around enforcement, how can I distinguish between a legitimate agricultural crop and an illicit drug? So to answer your question, have I spoken with the department? The department sees this as a strategic priority within the bioeconomy but aside from that... But did they show interest? Did they embrace it? Yes, they showed interest. But it should be embraced, I can't understand why it wouldn't be embraced. No, they showed great interest but again I think if they could manage to oversee the licensing for the industrial hemp itself but then allow the HPRA and the Department of Justice still to have that oversight over hemp for other use cases in food and things like that and then looking at it from an illicit drugs perspective as well. So it's important to get those distinguished, I suppose to distinguish it and to have clarity for the likes of Eugene here and then for the lack of investment coming in because without that, you know, we're gonna be having the same conversation in another five years. So what Senator Valdez is trying to do to get this out of health and into agriculture, I mean we don't need to reinvent the wheel. The briefs that I got received explained it very well that there is a regulatory framework in the European Union. This is a cap crop. Yes. Again I can be corrected if anyone wants to correct me, please do. But this is a cap crop. It's a major crop in France, in Belgium, in Germany. I mean we don't have to reinvent the wheel here. No. There's licensing for particular hemp plant seeds with the low THC content. Again, correct me if I'm wrong on any of the technical part of this but so we don't have to go back. We're in the European Union. Exactly. We were down at Dublin Castle today. We're president for the next six months. I mean this is what it's supposed to be about, isn't it? That we should be able to cross these lines. We should be aligning with that framework because, you know, that framework, it includes variety control, seed certification, it includes labelling and it includes geospatial declarations as well. So if there was concern from a public health point of view, you refer back to that framework. I just might come in there. We talked to the Department of Agriculture, we talked to the Department of Justice, we talked to the Department of Enterprise on this because we're looking at this the last three years. We designed the hemp farmers first. We probably visited about 40 farmers all around Ireland and probably some very successful. What they're doing and different processes they're doing but it's on their own bat, you know what I mean? And you'd find very much some engineering companies are growing. There's a party coping in South Leitrim designed a decorticator probably two years ago, you know what I mean? I think each of the agencies are very open to move this on but it's all through a policy, you know. It's key that we bring adopt EU policy that came out last November into the Irish regularity and that goes down the stream into the departments and I think that's the key to it. And it's this committee here today is what we're asking. They'll help that to actually Enterprise Ireland to come on. Our Department of Agriculture. Thank you so much. You mentioned that all the expert witnesses are here but there's a lack of joining of the dots, if you want to put it that way. I'd recommend an interesting model is what's happening in the Netherlands where a range of government departments, because it affects rural development, enterprise construction etc etc, a range of government departments and agencies co-funded a market activation team to establish these type of regional local supply chains. I think they're three or four years into their national project at the moment and they've set up about 12 supply chains of a range of biobased materials including Miscanthus and straw but also hemp. Personally I would think an initiative like that will be something that the committee could consider. That initiative is called building balance if you want to know the name of it. But effectively it's a market activation team and perhaps an initiative like that that would bring expertise across the supply chain together with some funding and some direction and some strategic funding to support could accelerate this transition that we need. If we leave it exclusively to the market there's a possibility it will go slower whereas if there's intervention to facilitate we can speed this up and we are really behind the curve on a European level. This is well established in many European nations. Thank you. Just on the cross-departmental, departments seem to be getting involved. There are other departments within the government that are interested in this because there was a joint committee on the climate environment and energy on the 22nd of October 2025 which engaged with the construction industry directly. So the Construction Industry Federation, Irish Green Building Council and some researchers that were there and one of the materials that they recommended again was hemp. So we're seeing it across these different things. One of the recommendations that, and then Patrick mentioned it as well, was that was the same thing was to set up a group of multi-stakeholders that brings in the departments along with the farmers, the manufacturers, the whole way across. So we've engaged, Patrick is involved as well, with the Irish Green Building Council and they're drawing up a terms of reference with us for the Irish Materials Working Group which will be looking at hemp and bringing the whole value chain together.