Professor John FitzGerald:

It is a question of establishing the damage function and the damage done and whether there are alternative, cheaper ways of dealing with it. That is an open issue. For example, the paper by Jasmina Behan showed that the problem for farmers in committing to turnover their land to forestry is that they can never go back. They would never be able to get the stumps out and have the pasture back. The move is irreversible. Another problem is that farmers are nervous that if there is only one buyer they will get screwed. We need a market. These are the types of issues arising. If we are to achieve a big change in land use, which might make farmers more money, we will need to talk to the farming community about how it could be achieved and the real obstacles. Carrots and sticks may not be the most important thing in this area. It is work in progress for us and it ought to be work in progress for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We have not reached any conclusions on this.

The Deputy's point regarding the need for balance in terms of carrots and sticks is important.