Mr. John Muldowney:

That is part of what we look at. The other part we look at is data from quantity surveyors in Ireland and the CSO data, as well as doing spot surveys of engineering companies and building provider companies that are building these sheds with building samples that we have to get a sense of the direction of travel. We are matching up the trends that are there with the big databases like those of the CSO and the quantity surveyors to match with the trends that we are seeing in the receipts that are coming in to see the direction of travel. At no point do we want to race ahead of what the prices are. Otherwise, this simply spurs on the industry to push up the costs. This is always a hard balancing act. We have to try to manage the reference costs to keep them reasonable with what is there. There was a rising reference cost and between July 2021 and the end of 2022, our reference cost increased by nearly 30% in the figures. The Department is trying to track what progress is out there and as I say, at present, we are reasonably close and are happy with what is there for the most part. There are one or two items, machinery items in particular, where they might fall out of kilter for some particular reason but that is one that we keep a close eye on. There have been three reviews since July 2021, which is a lot considering the current trends that are happening there.

On the water quality issue, as Mr. Savage said we do a significant review of what has happened in the previous green environmental schemes and on what consultees have highlighted for improvements for agri-environment going forward. This particular issue was an area where there was a lot of feedback on GLAS to the effect that we were being harsh on farmers. Under GLAS, if a farmer selected the watercourse fencing, they had to fence all watercourses. What we were finding was that many farmers had some small element of a watercourse on a part of their holding that was not fenced properly and they were being penalised on it. This was a way to try to better manage that. Fences were put in targeted areas where there was most pressure. We used the EPA water pressure maps for flow pathways to try to target the most appropriate site for fencing.

In theory, it is not only livestock in the river that is potentially a problem but also the overland flow of everything that is happening in the adjacent area. We still argue that in cases where one side is fenced we see a reduction in nutrient loading from the area of land where the overland flow is coming from. There are swings and roundabouts in how much we want to do. We will take the feedback that perhaps there is something we can look at further with regard to cattle drinking rights. Our statistics illustrate that we have almost 6,500 km of fenced watercourse on farms for which farmers are paid under ACRES. It is a significant achievement and it makes a significant contribution to trying to address water quality, although there are anomalies as the Senator pointed out. It is difficult to address all of them.

I will pick up on the point on technology and advisers. We have fortnightly meetings with Teagasc and the Agricultural Consultants Association on the challenges they have to try to troubleshoot issues and ensure we address their needs. We are always trying to improve the technology. If we take the results-based scoring we have, as Mr. Savage said we scored more than 1 million ha and 6,000 ha of this was done by farm advisers. It would not have been possible without the phone app. This app has significantly improved functionality for 2024 with a view to trying to streamline how advisers engage with the system. It is quite demanding. It is not that we want to leave out advisers. We are trying to bring them along and address their concerns within the system to ensure we are fair and transparent to everyone in the process.