Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their contributions. I want to ask about ACRES, which is the main scheme for the farming community from an environmental perspective. It is open to approximately 50,000 farmers. How many of these are in the dairy sector and other more intensive sectors? It is probably considered that the vast majority of farmers who go into these schemes are already operating at a low intensity and probably have higher biodiversity-type farming practices than many of their colleagues who are on better land and have larger expanses of land, particularly in the dairy industry.

Is there any way we can encourage those who are now farming more intensively to come into these types of schemes and change their practices?

There were a large number of delays with the previous forestry scheme. I know the intention is that the new scheme will be much more efficient with regard to letting people into it. I welcome the change we will see whereby non-farmers will not get as much of a premium, or for as long, as those engaged in farming. I hope it will encourage less buying up of land by investors. This is something that has really annoyed people in my constituency, farmers and people in the farming community. I would like reassurance that the new scheme will be more efficient.

Town sewerage schemes were mentioned in respect of linking into community group schemes in areas outside of a town and getting a project to remove individual septic tanks and bring them into group schemes. There is a long delay and a lot of frustration among people trying to get into the scheme. Uisce Éireann states it is not feasible and it will not go ahead. Earlier I mentioned the community in Hartley, which is outside of Carrick-on-Shannon. The people there have spent thousands on getting plans, maps and drawings done, getting consultants and making an application, with the support of the local authority, to be told at the end of it all they will not get the scheme. It is very frustrating for communities. I understand that many communities throughout the country are in this situation.

The systems already in place in many of our towns are working but they run into difficulties when there is heavy rainfall. In many of the old schemes the groundwater is linked to the sewage system. I know several towns in my constituency where after three days of heavy rain the sewerage system overflows into the river. When it was first done 200 years ago everything in the town was linked into the sewerage pipes. This is causing significant problems. It would be a relatively easy fix to separate these pipes. It would not be an upgrade to the system. There needs to be a focus on this because it causes a serious environmental hazard when it happens.