Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will be very brief. My second question relates to land use. Professor FitzGerald referred to 40 years of agricultural economics. As he stated, it is really difficult for us to change habits. This committee recommended in its report the merits of a national land use plan, not just in respect of farming but also the restoration of peatlands, and the importance of that in respect to flood management, the protection of the wilderness and the restoration of nature. To my mind, we would move towards a completely different forestry model not just composed of commercial plantations because we face a biodiversity crisis as well as a climate crisis. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Teagasc seem to have set themselves stridently against such an overview plan. Has Professor FitzGerald looked at the merits or otherwise of that kind of big-picture or long-term view as to where we might be going in this transition for fear that we would end up with a series of piecemeal and sometimes contradictory measures?