Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the presentation. I fully agree with Mr. Healy's view that proper investment in services in rural areas is needed for people to be able to live in them. No matter where you are, the living environment you experience is one of the key elements for you locating there. Garda stations, post offices, functioning banks, schools, etc., need to be anchors in those areas for them to be sustainable.

I agree that littering is shocking. Sometimes when hedges are cut back, one notices how much litter has been cast into them over the summer. Fly tipping is also a problem along with people throwing rubbish out their car windows because the wildlife picks up the rubbish and disperses it over an even wider area.

We often discuss Brexit as a Border issue due to the high dependence on agriculture in Border counties. It is, however, a 32-county issue. What interactions has the IFA had with the State for the State to ascertain and analyse its experience? What engagements has the State had with its members to alleviate the issues they are experiencing? Could Mr. Healy point to material interactions and materials engagements the State has had with his members to begin the process of alleviating the damage Brexit is causing and will continue to cause?

Has the association engaged with any State organisation looking for inputs, presentations or perspectives on a spatial strategy? What is the IFA's view on the fire station of the west? Biomass presents a major opportunity, as we heard from our contributors earlier, but there are worries in rural areas that if we go down the route of fire stations in too dense a fashion, it will force people to leave farms and add to the depopulation of areas. What is the association's perspective on that?

The flagship greenway is the Westport to Achill route and other greenways have been established since it opened. Could the IFA have a role in accelerating these projects, given that many of the farms the greenways could potentially pass through are on its members' land? For example, we are trying to establish a greenway in County Meath running from the source of the River Boyne to the estuary, which would pass through many internationally recognised heritage sites such as Trim Castle, the Hill of Tara, Newgrange, Slane, the Battle of the Boyne site, etc. Could the IFA have a role if project administrators went to the association for help to contact all the farmers on the route?

One of the major threats to farming in rural areas is market concentration. In other words, the demand that is fed is concentrated in a few hands, which exert enormous pressure on prices and the terms and conditions of supply whether it be the factories that farmers supply or the supermarkets that purchase agriculture products. There must be a strong attitude towards preventing that over-concentration of buyer power in the market. Has much effort been made by the IFA and farmers to develop a new wave of co-operatives? A contributor to the committee recently pointed out how a co-operative was set up in the north west in respect of the supply of biomass. It went from an inconsistent supply of timber into service stations to the production, sale and installation of boilers and a more secure and direct supply.