Mr. Tim Cullinan:

I thank the Senator and Deputies. I will respond to Deputy Flaherty first. He is right. We have done costings on this and it could cost the average farmer €30,000, which is a substantial amount of money for something such as soiled water, which there is already a system in place to deal with. If we are going down the road of increasing storage, we are very clear that there has to be grant aid and, in conjunction with that, loans at low interest rates. The Deputy asked about the situation across Europe. The system of farming, and particularly dairy farming, across Europe is more indoors. The impact would be somewhat different across Europe. We must always keep in the back of our minds that the system we have in Ireland, in which cows are out nine or ten months of the year, is an excellent system. It is the most efficient system in the world. If we are to increase the costs in this system by requiring the storage of soiled water when we know it is not having an impact on the environment, so be it.

Deputy Collins is right. There are elements of this, particularly not being able to outwinter cattle on farms with stocking rates from 140 kg N/ha down and having to use low-emission slurry equipment on farms operating above 100 kg livestock N/ha, will result in massive costs for the suckler and sheep sectors. The Deputy is right. We have had the climate action Bill and Ag Climatise. A number of people on this call, including myself, were involved with the development of the agriculture strategy to 2030. We have had all of these reports. We were very clear, particularly in respect of the strategy to 2030. We agreed to sustainable growth in our sector without impacts or serious costs for farmers. What is the point in all of us wasting time being part of putting these reports together if we are not going to follow through on them? We have moved on again and we now have the Department trying to ram proposals down farmers' necks without proper negotiation. I will make my point again, before this goes any further.

For all farmers, and the people who represent them, there must be proper negotiations around all of this because these measures can have a catastrophic impact on farmers.

Senator Lombard mentioned the banding system. Any farmer in derogation across the European Union and other countries already has banding. What we need here is time, more consultation or negotiation, and we need a long period because there is no point changing the practices of farming overnight. A point was also made about the calf and beef, which is an area throughout where attention needs to be brought to bear as well.

In terms of the availability of low-emissions slurry spreading, the Senator is absolutely right that there is a serious time lag with the manufacture of the equipment. Again, we need proper lead-in times for any of these measures and there is no point saying anything else. Again, it was mentioned, and there is no point saying this, but the lack of consultation about the soiled water issue is very concerning for us all.