Mr. Alex Copland:

I will reply to some of Deputy Ó Cuív's remarks. I was introduced as a member of various committees and it sounded as if I never actually do any work. I was reared on a hill sheep farm in Scotland. That is my background so I am aware of some of the issues of destocking, commonage and the lack of a hefted sheep stock. We faced this on our farms following the foot and mouth outbreak ten years ago. There were no sheep left that knew their way around to go back on the hills. It is a major issue and something of which our family have had first-hand experience. It is a serious problem. There have been well-acknowledged issues about the destocking of commonages and the fact that there is now a requirement to re-stock areas.

There is an issue with farming where there is a broad blanket application of these prescriptions. This is not the way to go about delivering for the environment. It can work in certain instances but it has been shown in the commonages that such a broad brush approach is simply not sensitive enough to deal with these specific issues. It should be considered at least on a commonage by commonage basis and possibly even at a finer scale. I agree with the concerns raised in that regard.

Reference was made to how REPS encourages simplified farming. I was interested to hear that. There is a significant issue in the west. We know many of our farm bird populations have declined because of a loss of small-scale tillage and the fact that there is grass all the way from Donegal to Kerry, whereas before there would have been an occasional acre of oats or potatoes. For example, in the Aran Islands there is still some rye and there are many small birds associated with the little plots of tillage and other small crops, and they are remarkably important. I have examined bird populations in Ireland, in particular the maps of the distribution. Recently we completed a bird atlas and one can see that many of these small seed-eating birds have vanished from the west. They are still in the south, the east and through the midlands where there is still some tillage. However, the impact has been remarkable and in only 20 years one can see significant changes, never mind the 60 year timespan to which Deputy Ó Cuív referred.

Reference was made to the environmental baseline and the agri-environment. When there is an increased baseline through cross-compliance, good agricultural environmental conditions and the greening in the first pillar, there will have to be an increase within the second pillar to justify the level of payment. However, I do not see there being an issue of the fact that there is nothing a farmer can do to get that money through the second pillar.

Far more can be done. There was a criticism of REPS to the effect that it was good for tidy farming but that it did not deliver too much. I dispute that. Certainly, it struggled to deliver for bio-diversity but I maintain it delivered substantially for water quality and it probably delivered for soils, simply because there were fewer pesticides and chemicals going onto the land. As a result, water quality is bound to have improved. The problem is that the monitoring, evaluation and the examination of the impact of the measures was poor. Had there been good environmental monitoring of some parts of REPS, we would have seen substantial benefits to the environment. The problem is that we will never know and it is a shame. It would have been great to have presented the success of REPS in terms of delivering good water quality and in terms of benefiting the landscape.

The Deputy referred to REPS being tidy and getting rid of the mattresses from gates, but it did far more. It maintained hedgerows and a green and pleasant-looking countryside, which is important for people visiting Ireland for tourism. The maintenance and character of the Irish landscape is important and REPS delivered in that sense, but these things are remarkably difficult to measure. Unfortunately, we know it struggled to deliver when it came to bio-diversity, and that was a shame. Nevertheless, in terms of designing agri-environment in future, there is much we can do and many ways we can improve the agri-environment schemes in place at the moment and deliver with them. Many farmers, from the most intensive farmer in the Golden Vale to the most extensive farmer in the west, can deliver for the environment. Whatever the level they happen to be geared towards, they can make a contribution to the environment. That is why second pillar funding is remarkably important, not only for the extensive farmers in the west but for all farmers, because they can all deliver something.