Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his statement. I did feel a bit worried when I read his statement last night. Ireland is an island in the middle of a radically changing climate world. There was a touch of the "keep calm and carry on" about it. Under diversification, the Minister talks about tillage and how we are exploiting the opportunity for import substitution of cereals and proteins. While that might spare our blushes, I remember seeing in several media outlets that rather than going to the Horn of Africa, some of the first ships that came from Ukraine were coming to Ireland to feed our cows, which was a bit embarrassing.

How is the Minister going to balance market growth in China with how we are going to reduce our emissions there? While we like to consider ourselves a food island, how does the Minister feel about the fact that we import 80% of our food? Given the weather "weirding" in some of the countries from which we import, perhaps we should have some diversification around that as well.

Why did rewilding not feature in the Minister's statement? Plenty of farmers with whom I have spoken would interested in rewilding if there were financial incentives. How many climate scientists work in the Department and what input did they have into his statement?