Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 20 July 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Sectoral Emissions Ceilings: Discussion

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

We have default figures. It is now recognised and can no longer be questioned that we had default figures and that the new figures are totally different. In the meantime, we are going to set targets that will be detrimental, one way or the other, for the family farms around this country. It is like building a house. You either put in a proper foundation and it stays up or you put in a bad foundation and it falls. Why have we gone down that road?

Farmers ask me daily, as I am sure they ask every other public representative, what a reduction of 22% means and what a reduction of 28% means. All I can say to them is it is like Santa coming for Christmas except this is a bad one and we do not know what toys he is going to bring. When are we going to hear? All I hear is there is a row over 30%, 28%, 27%, 25% or 22% but what is this? What must the average farmer do? Will they have to stay under the nitrates threshold of 170 kg per hectare for the next seven or eight years? Some public representatives who never farmed land in their lives have spoken of a need to have a cull. What are the guidelines or where are we with this? Can the officials give us some information? We have to talk to the ordinary people on the ground. As Deputy Carthy outlined, we need to have information that the Departments did not give us if we are to know what everything means.

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