Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the IFA representatives and thank them for their presentation. I generally support the idea of helping the sheep industry in any way possible because it is a tough sector of business to be in. If a coupled payment was announced where would it come from? There are 3.5 million ewes in the country. Will that come from the rural development plan or is there scope within the rural development programme to get more on top of GLAS, TAMS, knowledge transfer and the other schemes? Is the door closed for another scheme within that programme or must we go back to the European kitty for an extension? I would like that clarified. The concept is good but as Senator O’Neill said we do not need to increase numbers for the sake of increasing them. We need quality.

The knowledge transfer programme has been very successful and that could be developed further with farmers coming together. I hope I am wrong but I think getting young farmers involved in the sheep industry will be a huge challenge. As Senator O’Neill said, it is not “sexy” to be involved in the sheep industry. It was not sexy to be involved in agriculture during the so-called Celtic tiger years, not alone the sheep industry. I hope we will not go back down that road. Agriculture has been the driving force behind the rebuilding of this economy and it needs to be developed and protected for the future. The key is to get more young farmers involved and create an incentive for them. In some parts of south Carlow there are commonage issues. Senator Comiskey spoke about over-grazing. There may be under-grazing soon. The majority of sheep farmers who have rights on hills are elderly farmers who have nobody coming after them.

At more than 80 years of age, they will not go up a hill to run around after a sheep for half the day. What will happen to them and to those rights in the future are major issues to be teased out. It was a mistake not to include them in the TAMS. Hopefully, the Minister will row back on that in respect of sheep fencing. I tabled parliamentary questions in that regard last week and I hope there will be a bit of a row back, which would be helpful. It is important that younger farmers get involved in the industry.