Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. Like everybody else here, I believe that collectively we have to resolve the current problem of undergrazing and overgrazing of the commonages. The outcome of all our deliberations and conversation has to be about bringing forward a proper management plan. That is central to the desired results. A number of the areas identified are evident to everybody. The deduction in decoupling is a contributing factor, as is the age profile of the farmers who share in the commonages and, crucially, the low market returns. It is soul destroying and demoralising for people who have been active farmers for most of their lives; trying to scrape a living off the side of a hill is difficult for them.

The witness stated that attractive returns from off-farm employment during the Celtic tiger era meant farmers could move to where they could make a sustainable living and many possibly created the dormancy that currently exists. In identifying all of these issues, do we resort back to a form of coupling as a means of addressing the undergrazing issue. Could part of the plan include selective burn-off? Not far from where I grew up selective burn-off was controlled and carried out to restore the returns from the side of the hill.

I mentioned decoupling. Where ten or 15 people have access to commonages, many of which are dormant, and a number of people continue to be active farmers in those areas, through conversation and dialogue perhaps a negotiated arrangement could be arrived at where people could utilise the land by stocking it to the required density.

In doing that, people who are not active farmers - those who do not want to return to farming and who have, in effect, given up on it - might receive some form of compensation. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív mentioned the Commissioner's proposals in the ongoing negotiations and perhaps some mechanism could come about in that context to provide for compensation in some form. The key to all of this is initiative: an initiative to encourage people to stock at the required density or to encourage people who are not going back and have no real tie to the land any more. It would ensure that people are not just throwing their entitlements away and that there would be some compensation for their entitlements.

We need a new commonage framework plan and it must involve the input of all stakeholders, particularly the active users of the commonage. The new plan must involve the Department and public representatives. Somebody mentioned a partnership approach. That is the way we will have to deal with it. The presentation indicated that a figure of more than 69% would be fine but that there would be a problem with 30%. It is within our gift here to resolve this working together. Crucially, that must be in direct dialogue with the commonage users themselves.