Dr. Liam Hanrahan:

I will pick up on the point about the AD plants and the co-operative movement. It would probably have to fall to groups of farmers, perhaps in a co-operative, to get such an investment off the ground given the large-scale of investment that is required, the timeframe possibly involved in licensing such a project to get it going - from what we hear, it is a substantial length of time and the investment is absolutely huge - and the use afterwards of both the electricity and the digestate. A small number of farmers might not be capable of taking away the digestate on a daily basis. I am sure a collaborative approach certainly would be preferable.

The Leas-Chathaoirleach alluded to many of the measures associated with bringing about real changes in water quality. Slurry storage, which is one of the key measures, needs to be fast-tracked and prioritised through the young farmer investment scheme or even through planning permission applications. Slurry storage applications need to be looked on preferably to get it off the ground, particularly in light of potential new research that would suggest we need even more slurry storage. If that proves to be the case, further slurry storage requirements would have to be grant-aided as opposed to a farmer becoming non-compliant overnight. That would obviously be an issue in terms of applying for TAMS, and it would be a real problem then.

I would like to mention some other measures in this context. The ASSAP and signpost programmes need to be fast-tracked or advanced. Further investment in advisers is needed to allow them to be able to get on the ground to help farmers, essentially. The workload involved in the advisory sector at the moment is massive with the administrative burdens. For investment to happen on farms, farmers ideally need an investment guarantee - a return on their investment going forward and guarantees around stocking rates. When a farmer invests anything between €50,000 and €100,000 to get a reasonable amount of slurry storage, it is obviously is a total waste of money if that investment is not being used after three years. A guarantee around stocking rates would be the ultimate incentive to invest.