Mr. Henry O'Donnell:

As Mr. Colm O'Donnell outlined, the current amendment, as produced by the Commission, is detrimental to our members on carbon-rich soils. While it is mentioned that a derogation may be provided at national level and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has told us that this amendment is being made to protect our farmers, the reality is that agricultural activity on the land in question will potentially have to stop. That introduces much bigger questions, which our Department has not been able to answer, relating to whether the land will still be available for an eco scheme payment and whether farmers will be able to avail of a Pillar 2 payment in respect of that land. Far from protecting the land and the people who farm it, this amendment has the potential to stop all agricultural activity in those areas. As Mr. Colm O'Donnell stated, when we consider the bigger picture in terms of the biodiversity strategy and carbon sequestration and storage, we can see that the objective is to sterilise this land and use it for carbon sequestration to offset unsustainable activity everywhere else.

The Deputy mentioned the Department's submission to the committee. Page 4 of its document where it relates to Article 4 is inaccurate. GAEC 2 is mentioned along with eco schemes, landscape features and non-productive features under GAEC 9.

The reality is, looking at the EU regulation and the amendment proposed by the Commission, GAEC 2 lands and carbon-rich soils are separated out in Article 4, under which they are not classed as agricultural areas. While this is quite technical, the reality is that the legislation has the potential to be extremely damaging for our type of farmers. That is why we are acting so strongly on this issue because it potentially negates any gains that our farmers may get from increased convergence and a flat-rate eco scheme. If our lands are not eligible for all these things, it will take away from that.

That is a summary of the issues we have with GAEC 2. They are very real and we believe the Department has not addressed our concerns properly. We are extremely familiar with the regulations and can see the potential for huge issues for our members farming on carbon-rich soils going forward. There are also many unintended consequences that have not been properly thought out. We are asking that this be looked at in detail before it is passed into law in Europe.