Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is a good question and I will answer it in the best way I can. When I planted trees many years ago - I was maybe in my early 20s - I had this grand notion in my head. Very few people were talking about carbon credits or anything like it, but I was thinking of them. I was also thinking that in future carbon credits would be of value to a farmer. I would go further than the Deputy is going. I would be saying that a person might not own a forestry themselves but might own land. I am sure hedges would be growing around that land. There are the carbon credits that would be going from farms. People are talking negatively about farms but what about all the positive things about people farming? What about all the positivity in the hedgerows they have and the trees they might have? That is being ignored. It is not going to be ignored in the future because this Government is going to do everything it can. We heard Mr. Delany saying earlier that a monetisation of this issue was being looked at and, hopefully, in the future carbon credits will become a reality and valuable to the landowners. At the end of the day, the Deputy wants money for farmers, but so do I.