A Shrule operator
Key to Maria’s agricultural foundation are both her father and uncle. From the age of seven, after the family moved from the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, to the rural west of Ireland, she got a firm grounding in farming. “My dad had bought a farm, about 50 acres, just outside Shrule in the mid-80s. And from the day we moved there, he held the belief that he had four kids who needed exercise, and he didn't believe in having a sheepdog,” she says, laughing. With her father travelling back and forth to the US, where he ran a construction company, her uncle Liam took her under his farming wing. “He used to pick me up on Sunday mornings at five o’clock, and we'd head off to agricultural shows, because he was showing Connemara ponies. And I got to tag along. I always say it is in that type of environment that I found my personality because I found my grá for for rural life.” That grá has led her to complete a Masters in Agricutural Extension and Innovation – to ‘understand farming in greater detail’ – and to be a voice for farmers across the midlands-northwest constituency that she represents.
Elected as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) six years ago, Maria is in her second term serving as MEP for the midlands-northwest constituency, as a Fine Gael party member. Last year, she was appointed to the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee (AGRI) for the 2024-2029 term, leading on agriculture policy for Fine Gael in Europe. Earlier this year, she was appointed as standing rapporteur for EU-UK relations on the European Parliament’s Agriculture and Rural Development Committee. She says she wants to make a tangible rather than an ideological impact as an MEP.
Business not as usual
Our interview is a tale of two halves – influenced in part by the pace of change of the implementation of US president, Donald Trump’s trade tariffs. The time between the first and second half of our discussion saw him reduce his initial 20 per cent tariff to 10 per cent, then pause any further change for 90 days. The pause is welcome, Maria says, as it affords time for negotiation and discussion. A tit-for-tat approach is not desirable, she says, citing the situation with China, but if a tariff is to stick, then 10 per cent is the best we can hope for she adds. But the reality of all of this is ‘business not as usual’. Irish drinks exports to the US are valued at more than €800m and these developments represent a huge threat to Irish companies. Maria comments: "I spoke to Pat Rigney from Drumshanbo Gin and he quoted (at time of interview) that 90 per cent of manufacturers of alcohol in Ireland had stopped, they had paused production,” says Maria. The ripple effect of this, particularly for companies that have based themselves in parts of rural Ireland, is worrying, she says. “We need people in rural parts of Ireland, because our larger cities, and I would say that across any European city, are being suffocated. We need people building and rebuilding communities right across rural areas. And, bear in mind, 83 per cent of Europe is rural. And when you look at any form of the food chain or the supply chain, it starts with somebody. If it's in food or drink, it starts with a farmer.”
President Ursula von der Leyen has recently been promoting Europe as a safe place in which to ‘do business’, telling Politico that countries were ‘lining up’ to work with Europe, which she described as a ‘safe harbour in tumultuous times’. Commenting on a potential ‘choose us not US’ strategy, Maria comments: “Do I think we should sidestep the likes of America? We can’t. They're too big of a player. Their politics is too big, their market is too big. And even the way we trade with them, we're so globally connected.” And while it is exciting that new trade deals may be struck with other countries, she says, Europe must look at bolstering its Single Market and ensuring that it is optimised. “We're 450 million consumers and growing, so we're not a small market to anybody. But I feel that this Trumpian style of politics has forced us in Europe to figure out where our teeth are, and actually stand up and be counted as a big block of consumers. The Single Market hasn't worked to the degree it should have so we’ve got to fix that, as well as in parallel, look at new trade deals.”
Mercosur
Her feelings about the controversial Mercosur trade deal are clear – as it stands, it is not acceptable. “In its current text, we don’t agree. You can’t take from Peter to pay Paul. We need to wait for the 'legal scrub' to happen in June and, more than likely, we will vote on that later in the year.” Other trade deals are on the table, with countries such as India, by the end of the year, Maria says, and there are other markets to explore but none of this, she says, should come at a cost to our ‘already depleting sector’. She adds: “That comes back to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). If that was fit for purpose and all of CAP was given to farmers to produce great food, [to achieve] best-in-class animal welfare, to implement farm safety techniques, and to use innovation and technology, then trade deals would be less of an issue because farmers would be able to scale their enterprises and serve the markets as they wish. But right now, they are not paid properly for their produce and then, we are piling trade deals on top of them.”
TB strategy
Recently, Maria has been critical of Europe’s current animal-disease strategy, stating that it is ‘not fit for purpose’. While there have been outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in Germany (water buffalos), and Hungary and Slovakia have had to cull thousands of cattle, here in Ireland, we are grappling with a growing bovine tuberculosis (TB) problem. In the year to March 2025, there were 41,548 cases detected – an increase of over 11,600 on the previous 12 months – says Maria, while the number of restricted herds was 6,163.
She says she has been in touch with the head vet for Northern Ireland, Brian Dooher, who recently concluded a review of how NI is dealing with TB there. Maria explains that there is a proposal to establish a pilot TB-eradication project from an all-island perspective. “We're working at an EU level and a national level, to create a pilot project looking at a couple of counties in and around the border, with funding from north and south, and looking at various mechanisms such as testing, vaccination, culling, if needed, and education for farmers and ag-technicians.”
She says farmers must be supported to take the correct action and that requires making available to them the science and technology that can make a difference, as well as the financial support.
Maria says she has asked EU commissioner for health and animal welfare, Olivér Várhelyi, what kind of support he envisages for eradication in countries faced with outbreaks of animal diseases on their farms. The EU pulled TB-eradication funding from Ireland around two years ago.
“We heard from Minister Martin Hayden, that he estimates the number of TB cases reaching 60,000 which is terrifying, because the payout is enormous, but the impact on farm families is also enormous.
“Commissioner Várhelyi said they have no plan in place to look at an increased funding pot. With TB is on the rise in Ireland, and foot-and-mouth on the rise, sadly, in other places, then an overhaul of our preparedness in any crisis management around animal disease is critical,” she says. She intends to pursue this issue, she says.
Priorities
Maria gives an overview of her main priorities in her role as MEP, particularly within her agri remit: family farms, generational renewal, and women in farming are some of her passions. “Sadly, women are way behind when it comes to financial security on a farm enterprise and that is one of my personal and professional goals,” she says.
“In relation to generational renewal, when you look at under-40s, it's less than 12 per cent of the holdings and I think it's less than 7 per cent in terms of farm managers across the EU. And then we're talking about being competitive long-term? But if we don't have that skill set coming through, then that’s a problem.”
From her own personal experience, she says, she is aware of the obstacles that exist to generational renewal, and the difficult conversations that many farming families are having. She says: “While some of the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed around succession planning and the next steps, I'm like every young person who's having those hard conversations about the future of a 50-acre farm. We are just like many others on a farm like that. It does okay. But do we want it to do better? Or what type of enterprise can we grow from that? Do we look at agri-tech, agri-tourism, or diversification?”
Farmer mental health is also a key area of work for Maria: “This has been a personal and political priority of mine for a very long time. I come from a small rural community, and in the in the course of a decade and a half, we've lost in excess of 20 people from death by suicide.”
She explains that she has been working hard, alongside a group of like-minded peers in the Parliament, to ensure that mental health is prioritised at the highest levels. She says: “We lobbied hard to make sure mental health was discussed within the president’s State of the Union address. That's twice now. So when we talk about the physical health and safety of workers [across Europe] our push is to make sure the mental health element is included in that. It's taken a little while. I'm elected now six years so this is my second mandate, obviously, but we're breaking the waves in some cases and making sure money is going where it is needed.”