Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Senator Mulherin also asked who bears the cost. I appreciate that the cost is borne by the farmer and I have never hidden from that. If costs are reduced along the line and that results in diminished costs elsewhere, then there is a likelihood that some of the saving will be passed back to farmers. This should help as well. It is not a silver bullet but it should help with market access. More market access is beneficial. Let us consider the converse. If we have fewer markets we become more of a price taker, whereas when we have more market opportunities we are better able to navigate the best opportunities for farmers, if one market goes down. I firmly believe this is the right thing to do for many reasons. There is a cost for market access but there are labour saving elements as well. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland report speaks for itself. I believe it is the right thing to do.

Senator Mulherin raised the issue of an evaluation of the beef data genomics programme. That is under way. I have no wish to go into too much of the detail but it is a data driven scheme. The more data and information that is available to farmers about breeding practices in the beef industry, the better. The same applies to any industry. This has been proven in the dairy herd. The more data available to farmers that is gathered from this programme, the better their chances of making proper decisions in their farms.

I would encourage the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation. It is not a Department agency. In fact, I believe it operates under a co-operative structure. We do not appoint board members. However, I believe there is a case to be made for the ICBF to be more engaging and proactive in terms of what I believe is a story that the federation needs to share. As the federation gathers more and more data, the story will help the industry to make better informed decisions.

I have no wish to get caught in the crossfire between breeding societies and the ICBF. They have different, if not conflicting, objectives. Good luck to breeding societies. Farmers should be able to make informed breeding decisions on the basis of data. That is what beef data genomics programme aims to do. That data must be legible, decipherable and consumable by farmers. That is something the ICBF could take on board in getting its message out.

I take Senator Mulherin's point about the pearl mussel. I have seen some of this stuff myself at constituency level as well. There is a conservation element, as in the hen harrier scheme. We need to be practical how it impacts with development objectives locally. It is not especially useful to comment any further on that.

Senator Daly makes a point about how many will apply for the scheme and how we plan for it. We are into numerous rural development plans at this stage. We have form in respect of various schemes, including the agri-environment option scheme, GLAS and the rural environment protection scheme. We have a reasonable handle on the appetite for such schemes. Therefore, we can make an informed guess on the level of applications.

Senator Daly mentioned the hen harrier scheme and asked what if everyone applied. It is never the case that everyone applies. The criticism I am getting on the hen harrier scheme is that farmers cannot get in fast enough with their applications. There is a process that the scheme requires farmers to join at various stages. There is form in terms of estimating the level of interest in any scheme. We get representations from farm organisations as well and that is helpful. We hear from all stakeholders on what schemes might be of interest. All these things go into the mix in constructing the next rural development programme.

The policy objectives need to be met as well. There is farmer interest in schemes. In the context of the next rural development programme a major challenge will be to align them. Our requirement will be to align more of our rural development programme and our pillar 1 spending on climate-related projects. That is clearly a policy direction of travel. We need to be able to find a way to do that in a way that works for farmers.