Mr. John Keane:

I thank Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan for the questions. I will deal with the first part in its entirety, in terms of the climate action Bill and where we were coming at it from. I am conscious of the efforts made for the biogenic methane element of the Bill and recognising the socioeconomic impact of farming and the provision for that. The key word the Deputy used was "potentially". As farmers and young people living in rural Ireland, certainty around the future, what it will look like and how we play a role in that is fundamental to growth of our businesses.

To break that down to a practical level of how the word "potentially" impacts, in terms of making alternative arrangements for biogenic methane, a young farmer leaving a level 6, 7 or 8 in Teagasc will potentially go home to farm on a livestock enterprise and plans to grow and diversify a business and make investment. Time and time again, from a young farmers point of view, in terms of submissions we have made to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and to numerous Governments over many years, access to credit, finance and land always have been highlighted as the key constraints for young farmers entering farming.

If you take that as the context of someone coming home at a relatively young age, in their mid-20s, investing significant amounts of time, investment and finances, whether that be taking on debt from a bank, investing in facilities or capital investment and if you expect someone in 2021 to make that investment and plan for five, ten or 15 years of repayments without certainty on their capacity to meet those repayments, that is a difficult place for anyone to come from. That is one essence of where we were coming from.