Mr. Owen O'Driscoll:

To put it in context, the EIP programme provides €50 million to €60 million to be invested where farmers can do measures to help water quality. It is a great concept. The issue is that we, as private advisers, are not allowed to prepare plans for our own farmers. We know the farms; we know the systems and we know how to get the optimum benefits for farmers in these areas and we are not allowed at the moment. We are excluded from the EIP programmes. We are also excluded from the ASSAP, which was the initial one. In the Timoleague catchment, I have possibly 60% or 70% of the farmers in that area to whom I provide information and advice, and I have no interaction with the ASSAP team. Therefore, we need is to be involved at an ASSAP level and an EIP level so that we have consistent messaging. One person could be saying go left and the other could be going right, so we have to avoid that confusion. Again, we met Ted Massey from the Department's nitrates division last week and we brought this issue that we need to be part of the EIP going forward as part of a sixth nitrates action programme, NAP, regulation, which is here and forth.

I am not sure of the figures because we do not really do the plans. A client with whom I have dealt for 30 years might come into me and I have to send him or her to Teagasc to do an EIP plan, which makes no sense in my view. I cannot answer to the figures. If we had access to doing plans, we would know straight away off the tops of our heads that we could do A, B and C for a person's farm because we have known all these farms for 30 years and more. Therefore, the knowledge is what is missing here in the link.