Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that the Minister is here to answer my questions on this issue despite his busy schedule. This issue has caused great anxiety among rural people.

The way the Commission has introduced this leaves a lot to be desired. Thankfully, we now see a significant pushback to these proposals, not only in this country but across Europe. Whether it will get through the environmental committee in the European Parliament now is open to question. The questions about and scrutinising of these proposals are long overdue.

Farmers and rural people have worked extremely hard and spent much money to make land productive. There is a view that they would be forced to rewet this land and let it go back to a wild state. As I said, much clarity needs to be brought to what the proposals are. The proposals need to be modified. The targets initially proposed by the Commission about the amount of land it wants to be restored and rewetted also, in my opinion, have to be readjusted. The whole knowledge of rewetting and rewilding needs to be investigated too. Yesterday, the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which I chair, visited a timber facility in the west of Ireland. Some 180 people are directly employed there and 250 more are indirectly employed. Raw timber comes in there and an end product comes out which is suitable for construction.

Regarding the land that is now being proposed to be rewetted or rewilded to try to reduce our emissions, in my opinion, we have not done a full balance sheet on the benefits that timber products have in construction in our battle to reduce emissions. Outside the timber facility's office yesterday, there was a small parcel of timber ready to go into construction. There was a tonne of carbon stored in that timber. When that timber goes into construction, replacing concrete products, it will store that carbon forevermore. While obviously some lands are not suitable for forestry, I think the full balance sheet has not been worked out regarding when this land grows timber, the benefits of that timber in replacing other products, and its substitution for concrete products, which have many emissions attached to their production. We need to go back and look at that seriously.

We now have experts speaking about rewetting bogs, saying that for the next 50 to 80 years, it will increase the emissions rather than reduce them. They say methane will increase the most. The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, will be well aware of methane, the retention of our derogation and so on, and the battle we have on the emissions side in the dairy sector. The scientific expertise is now there to say that for the next 80 years, if we rewet our bogs, it will increase methane emissions. Much scientific and environmental research needs to be done to know exactly what the benefit of this would be.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Cahill for raising this issue this morning. It is really important and every opportunity we get to communicate on it and discuss it is welcome. I absolutely accept that farmers have concerns about it and also that it is easy to create concern about it as well. The opportunity to engage, discuss and communicate where we are at and where we want to go is welcome. I, as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and this Government understand the concerns farmers have and are working to make sure they are accommodated to have a balanced, proportionate outcome here. Importantly, we need to have a good nature restoration law that provides the platform for ensuring we have strong nature and biodiversity recovery in the future, which is more important to farmers than everyone else.

I have worked closely with my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, which is the lead Department for this legislation. I have also taken a leading role at European level with the Agriculture and Fisheries Council where, along with my EU colleagues, we have made significant progress in ensuring that the law is workable for our farmers and our country overall. This was initially published more than a year ago. While the public debate on it has really only been apparent in the last month or less, I have been working on this for more than a year, since the publications were first published by the European Commission.

Since the publication of the European Commission’s proposal last year, my Department has been working closely with our colleagues in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and across Government to develop our national position on the proposals. The proposed text has evolved significantly within the Council and we can now look forward to the vote on the Council proposals at the Environment Council next week. Article 9 in the proposal focuses on agricultural ecosystems, introducing targets for increasing trends of farmland bird populations, grassland butterflies, stocks of organic carbon in mineral soils and high diversity landscape features. Ireland is already delivering significant action towards these objectives through our CAP strategic plan and I was glad to be able to approve 46,000 farmers to join our flagship agri-climate rural environmental scheme, ACRES, recently.

Article 9(4) proposes binding targets for restoration of drained organic soils under agricultural management, a proportion of which must be achieved through rewetting. It is this target that has received the most significant attention. The Council's proposals set the following minimum targets for restoration of drained peatland soils under agricultural management: 30% by 2030, of which a quarter must be rewetted; 40% by 2040, of which at least half must be rewetted; and 50% by 2050, of which at least half must be rewetted. The flexibilities, which I fought hard for, within the Council's proposal allow for delivery of this ambition on land under a variety of current uses, not just agricultural area. Under the Council's proposals, the extent of rewetting required will also be at the member state's discretion. There are significant flexibilities, which combined with other provisions, mean that under the Council’s agreed position, which we fought hard to achieve at European level, we would have the capacity up to 2050 to be able to meet our rewetting requirement from State-owned land if necessary.

We will, of course, provide options to farmers to contribute to that and to pay farmers who wish to participate. I have no doubt that given the experience I have had, and as we have seen over many years and decades with the farming community in Ireland, that where there are good schemes, good payments and sensible approaches taken, farmers will step up to the market, because farmers want to see a balanced, proportionate outcome here and want to make their contribution too. Food production is at the centre of it but this has to be done in harmony with nature and has to see nature restored.

Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

First, I acknowledge the work the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, has been doing to bring commonsense to these proposals coming from Brussels. From various meetings I have had with the Minister, I know he is working hard to make sure that public lands will play a huge part in achieving the targets that will be set down for rewetting and rewilding. That is to be welcomed. On designation, the last time we had a significant amount of land designated in this country, it came in with significant fanfare. For the first number of years, there was a reasonable compensation scheme for farmers in those designated areas, but that compensation scheme quickly evaporated. The capital value of land that has been designated has been decimated. I would say it has reduced by about 80%. At the moment, designated land is probably worth 20% of the value of undesignated land nearby.

When farmers hear about rewetting, a shiver goes up their spine. They are extremely worried, if someone in their locality decides to rewet, about the impact it will have on their land that they want to keep in arable production. Bord na Móna in Offaly has been pivotal in bringing attention to this. There is a significant number of bogs in that area.

10 o’clock

It would be a prime target for rewetting. They are looking for assurances that if large parts of those bogs are rewetted, that it will not have an impact on adjoining land or land in the locality. I would urge the Minister to find a resolution to that and to provide assurances to those farmers that if land is rewetted in their locality, it will not impact on their ability to produce.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Cahill again for bringing this up today, and bringing these concerns to the table. This is something I have been working on for more than a year since the policy proposals were first published by the Commission. It is something I have been working on with Government colleagues, and with fellow European agriculture ministers at Council of Ministers level. The changes we got and that have now been agreed with other agriculture ministers through the Council of Ministers deal with many of the issues and challenges I saw at the outset, and bring balance and proportionality to this law.

Much of the discussion in the last few weeks has been around what is happening at European Parliament level, because the Parliament is a co-decision-maker on this. I hope, and expect from the soundings I am taking, that we are seeing the Parliament now move closer to where the Council of Ministers has been at. If we see that, we will get a balanced and proportionate outcome.

It is important we get a nature restoration law to provide the policy and platform across the European Union to deal with the really concerning situation which concerns farmers and everyone in society, where we have seen nature diminished in the last generation or two. We cannot afford to see that continue. That is really important for food production and farm incomes, but also for the existence of us all and the health of the world around us. It is important we do this, but do it in a balanced and proportionate way. That is what I have been working to achieve. It is really important that we communicate that and provide the reassurance to farmers that we, as a Government, understand their concerns. We have worked to ensure that those concerns are reflected, and we will work with them to back them in the work that they have shown themselves to be willing to do. Witness ACRES, for example, and the very significant uptake on that. Farmers have shown they are willing to do this with the appropriate backing, and we will be giving them that backing. Importantly, we will be working to communicate what we are doing as well, and the fact we all want to work together to achieve something which is really important for all of us.