Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Can I just finish Mr. Lumley? If I want to think of the next generation and my young son or daughter, I have to clean the drain on the margin of land we have been given to live and work on. I cannot make the Golden Vale out of it. We have to work that land to keep the next generation there and to hand on that torch. That generation will not be kept there by not cleaning the drain and letting it flood. That will definitely make youngsters emigrate or cause flight from the land, as everyone on the committee who is trying to get them back into farming knows. When Mr. Lumley talks about the European Green Deal, he should look at the environmental scheme that is out at the moment. The top figure is €300 less than the green low carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, which was no great scheme, and on average it will work out less than that.

I urge An Taisce as an organisation to be more positive to people in rural Ireland. Mr. Lumley talks about An Taisce members in rural Ireland, but I would say not many of them ever put in a stone shore in average ground right around this country. An Taisce might have members living in rural Ireland but I do not think they are from a farming background.