Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will come back to the Minister on that. I take him at his word. The difficulty is that I am talking about genuine farming and the grazing of this land. I am not talking about people who are trying to avoid paying tax. It is a significant barrier to the roll-out of renewable energy across the country, in particular the deployment of solar panels.

We have the mother and father of all charges in trying to achieve 70% renewable electricity on our grid by 2030. That is based on our current electricity demand, never mind the petrol that is being put on this particular fire with the number of data centres being connected to the grid. Unless we can actively encourage farmers to start installing solar panels on their land, we are not going to get anywhere near our 2030 targets.

This particular definition excludes the area of land under a solar panel that is being grazed not just by lambs but also by ewes because they are a significant height off the ground and allow daylight to get in and grass to grow. This land is being actively grazed under solar panels and, because of that, should be considered agricultural land. It cannot have cattle on it, but it can have sheep grazing on it and there is no reason it should fail to comply with the definition. The difficulty is that the Revenue Commissioners' interpretation of agricultural land in this instance is very different from the practical reality. I ask the Minister to reconsider this between now and Report Stage.