Mr. Jason Fitzgerald:

I refer back to the response plan. This is a consultative committee being formed to discuss the threat to the hen harrier from forestry, intensive agriculture and wind energy. We will participate in that committee’s work but the farmer is being left out again. The farmer has to be looked after if the bird is to be looked after. We hope to participate in the response consultative committee and inform people of the needs of farmers in these areas.

We need a long-term scheme to match the value of forestry because the majority of farmers want to farm their land. They want to plant it because it is the easiest way out. They have been told they are entitled to nothing and that is why they want forestry. We understand that a limited amount of forestry, if any, will be accepted on the response plan. For the people who really need to plant their land that is their best chance and the people who just want to farm their land but find that is the only way out, should be compensated properly for a new scheme. The scheme has to match forestry in every way to take the heat away from the demand to plant the land. That is why it has to be long term. It has to equal the demand for forestry in monetary terms.

In respect of the Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme, GLAS, if one farm in an area is designated and another is not, that farmer can still draw the €5,000 under GLAS, like the person on the hen harrier scheme. If a farmer has 100 or 200 acres under GLAS it all has to be farmed to the same level even though the farmer is being compensated for only the first 13.5ha. The restrictions in that scheme would reduce productivity on the farm by between 75% and 80%. The farmer is allowed only 40 units of nitrogen, artificial and natural, organic. That ground can be used for only rough grazing for cattle. There will be no nice lush green grass to feed them. They will be fed on stemmy, coarse grass. The cattle are used to provide the habitat for the hen harriers as opposed to the land being used to produce livestock. The farmer’s stocking rate will be significantly reduced to 0.6 of a livestock unit per hectare and in some cases 0.01 livestock unit per hectare.

When we went to Europe one regulation stood out, EC73/2009, Article 34(2)(b)(i), which states that if a farmer’s land qualified for single farm payment in 2008 and has lost eligibility since then, as a result of scrub and does not qualify for the Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition, GAEC, it should qualify for payments under the single farm payment scheme. That makes sense to us, that farmers cannot be penalised by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine because there is scrub growing on the land while the National Parks and Wildlife Service will not allow them to remove the scrub. It is a ridiculous situation.

We have considered legal advice but 4,000 farmers are affected. They would need a substantial sum of money to take a case on this. Surely a government could see sense in protecting these farmers and rural areas rather than forcing farmers down the legal road to get value from their land and to continue their existence in these areas. Surely people on the sides of hill and on some of the most challenging agricultural land in the country cannot be forced down these roads because these farmers have not been represented over the past four years, despite what people say. We were told bluntly there was no more money under GLAS and that we were to be left in this situation for another four to six years until the next round. We had no choice but to bring this to people’s attention to get some justice for these farmers, otherwise there is a strong possibility they will not be there in six years’ time.