Dr. James Moran:

Yes. I often think of the classic example of where we are at the moment. We have heard a very good example about cutting flock numbers or herd numbers in Ireland. In 1999 there was an issue of the western hills in the context of a large amount of soil erosion. Sheep numbers were very high and this was leading to issues. It was signalled from the 1980s, a decade previous, that something needed to be done to sustainably manage the sheep numbers on the hill.

In 1999 there was a European Court of Justice finding against Ireland stating it would not get any more agriculture payments in the following year unless something was done about this. What did we do at that stage? Rather than managing the incremental management of this, we went over a cliff edge and stock numbers had to be cut by 30% overnight. I remember being in Tourmakeady at the time as a very young adviser talking to farmers at a rural environmental protection scheme, REPS, training course. They said when they heard first about this European Court of Justice finding against Ireland, they were not sure what it was all about, but they thought stock numbers would be managed at last. They said they had one or two shareholders in the area who had 800 or 900 sheep while others had 50 or 60, and this at last would bring that 800 back down. What happened, they said, was they were all cut by 30%, so the lads who were not doing any damage were cut to 20 or 30 ewes. They were then off the hill; that was it. The lads who had 800 were cut to 500. I am not blaming them as they drove on and followed the incentives.

I believe we will have exactly the same issue now. We have had repeat incremental change leading to no real results. Now we are at the same cliff edge again. With a wrong move and a stroke of a pen, we can destroy our agricultural sector and make a very bad move. This is why, at this stage, we need to make a bold move with our CAP strategic plan. We need to be environmentally ambitious on it.