Michael Comiskey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their very interesting presentation. I expect this debate will continue until we agree the budget. It is important we set and agree a budget that is as near as possible to what we have in both the first and second pillars. I understand The Environmental Pillar focuses more on the second pillar. The witnesses have said that the funding for 50% of the measures in the second pillar returns to the farmers. I agree. What percentage of the second pillar goes to farmers currently and how much goes to communities for community projects? Do the witnesses feel more should go to the farmer?

I agree with many of the points made by Deputy Ó Cuív. We worked together in the past through Comhairle na Tuaithe and on destocking. We are now at a stage where we must try to get sheep back on the hills. This will take some time because they must be bred there. We had a problem in Louth when we had foot and mouth disease there and the sheep were taken off the land. Many of the farmers involved then have got older - as has happened in the west - and are no longer able to go back farming on the hills. The commonage debate is opening up again and, in that context, yesterday morning I received a phone call from a farmer in Mayo who took sheep from the hills when destocking was being promoted and invested in sheds and lowland green land. Now he is being asked to put sheep back on the hills but he is a lot older now. There are not many younger people who would be willing to do that without some incentive or help from a good scheme, like the REP scheme.

The REP scheme was a very good scheme, but the AEOS does not offer enough. If we had a scheme somewhere in between the two, that would encourage our younger farmers. Now that there is not as much work available in construction, such a scheme might encourage them. This issue will arise again in the debate on the commonages. We must try to encourage younger people to get involved. There is no point in depending on the farming population as the average age is increasing. We need to encourage younger people to start farming, whether with their parents on a hill farm or with older bachelor farmers. We must come up with a scheme that will allow this.

I am aware The Environmental Pillar has a great interest in the bird population; so do we. I visited Boleybrack grouse project recently with the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Deenihan. That interesting project is introducing the wild grouse there. Perhaps funding could be provided for such projects under the second pillar to encourage the use of the hills. The suckler welfare scheme is suspended currently and any payments left to be made will be very small. That scheme encouraged birds to come around feeders because there was always some meal lost around the feeder.

When the farmer returned to fill it up, he always found some pheasants or other birds hanging around. It was not intended to work in that way but it was working indirectly. There is much food for thought. The coming months will be interesting for all of us. I hope we will finish up with good schemes in future that will encourage people to farm the hills in the west as well as reaching our 2020 targets, as Senator O'Neill noted, and that we will have the right balance in future.