Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Many of the issues I wished to raise have already been clarified. I thank our guests. I wish to refine one or two points. Professor Stout is absolutely right regarding the way in which some of the schemes have penalised farmers for keeping land that was ultimately a benefit to the environment, biodiversity and nature generally. If a farmer allows certain scrubland to remain in that state, the land is not considered to be arable and, therefore, unfortunately falls outside the schemes. I and many of my Oireachtas colleagues spend time arguing with Departments and trying to ensure that farmers get their payment. Sadly, the rules and conditions have been so rigidly applied or were so rigidly designed in the first instance that it is about productivity. If there is anything to be learned from this discussion, it is that it should be clearly recognisable that farmers are providing a benefit by leaving lands to be less arable and more in concert with nature. At this stage, many of them do not even want to be paid for it; they just want to avoid being penalised for what they are doing. I would argue, as would other members, I am sure, that far from seeing a cut in their payment for doing what is right by nature, they should be receiving a top-up for it. That is something on which the committee can work with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in terms of the design of schemes.

I ask Dr. Lysaght or Mr. Fogarty to comment more broadly on what happened in Killarney national park. It is a huge wake-up call for all present and maybe for society generally. People who previously did not talk about biodiversity or its loss have seen vast swathes of nature being destroyed in one fell swoop and they are discussing it. Can the witnesses give some indication of the scale of the loss, based on what they know to date of what has happened, and its negative impact on the environment? Perhaps we can build on what happened there by trying to convince people who say they are not climate change deniers but have been rather silent on this particular situation in the past couple of weeks.