Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What Dr. Dunford has outlined is very interesting. First, if I understand him correctly, the first lesson from the presentation is that all of this so-called wild landscape is farmed landscape, right to the top of the hills. Second, the perception, or the reality, is that it was damaged. Dr. Dunford might clarify what caused the damage. In other words, the perception seems to be that in the 1950s or whatever it was in fairly good condition in that the wild flowers that are so important in the Burren were thriving but that it got damaged. Can Dr. Dunford confirm whether that was as a result of changing farm practices, the inducement of premia encouraging people to increase stock levels or the prescriptions, when the special area of conservation, SAC, was introduced, that created circumstances that did not work locally? In other words, an all-year prescription was laid out that did not recognise weather or farming practices and that perhaps was the wrong prescription in the first place. It is important for us to understand fully what went wrong and the reasons for that.

Second, in terms of a large area that is designated as an SAC, and Dr. Dunford's scheme is voluntary, can the farmers who are not in his scheme but who are in the SAC still operate according to prescription from the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine? Is there an appreciable difference between what is happening on their land and what is happening on the land that is part of this voluntary scheme, because that would be a good measure of the effectiveness of the two approaches?

Third, unlike someone who joins a rural environment protection scheme, REPS, or who is in part of the NPWS scheme where an inspector appears out of the blue, inspects it and one either passes or fails, and even though Dr. Dunford marks the score at the end of the year as to whether the fields are in the order in which he wants them to be, do I take it that long before he gets that far the group is available to advise the farmer, work with him or her, answer questions and help the farmer achieve the maximum result, namely, a high score? In other words, are they made aware that they are not getting to that point long before the official inspection date?

I am interested in another aspect also. When the group is working out its prescriptions, the farmers who have farmed a place like the Burren for years would have built up a fair amount of knowledge about their own land. Much of that knowledge would have been handed down from generation to generation. How much is the input from what I would call the scientific side counterbalanced or influenced in terms of taking into account the traditional knowledge of the land that would have built up over a long period by farmers who would understand the capacity and the nature of the land? How much of an input do farmers have into the way this programme works? How much of it is dictated by the professionals as opposed to the farmers?

Can Dr. Dunford see a scheme such as this one operating as the ecological scheme? I understand from what he said that one could be in the NPWS scheme or in REPS and get this payment as a top-up. Can Dr. Dunford envisage a scheme like this one becoming the ecological scheme in an area, similar to the way the NPWS would impose its requirements, and in Connemara all these stocking numbers have been given out of the blue? They say they looked at the site but the people were just given a number.

Many people would say that is too simplistic, in terms of movement of animals and so on.

Does Dr. Dunford see this programme as the ultimate REP scheme and the ultimate coherent environmental approach or as a series of narrow measures?

Dr. Dunford spoke about walls, for example. I always considered that to be the easy part of the REP scheme. If a farmer had to build a wall, that physical requirement was easily complied with. Management of the grazing pattern and making sure land does not go to scrub or be overgrazed is where we have continually fallen down. How proactive is the programme in that regard? Is it done by some prescription, such as "This is what a farmer must do for three years and this is his stock number", or is it done on a proactive basis. As wet and dry seasons and early and late winters come and go, does the Burren programme work with farmers to factor in seasons, weather and so on or does it simply say, "This is your stocking level and this is what you must put out"?

Can Dr. Dunford confirm that the part of the world he works in is predominantly cattle producing and has very few sheep? Does the programme impose limits on the breeds of cattle or is that choice left to farmers? Does it try to go back to more traditional breeds or does it allow the continental crosses that are now quite common? What is Dr. Dunford's view on breeds of cattle? Has the breed of cattle and patterns of grazing any effect on the land?