Mr. Joe Healy:

I will share the response to the substantive issues with Mr. Cooney. I refer to Deputy McConalogue's contribution. The EU pre-Paris position and the international Paris Agreement refer, while highlighting the need to meet the challenge of climate change, to the fact that we must keep the multiple roles of agriculture very much to the forefront. Those multiple roles include food, fuel and energy production as well as the climate enhancement and climate mitigation potential of the sector. The Paris Agreement reiterates that European position and reaffirms that food production must not be threatened when addressing the climate challenge. Some five or six years ago, France and Italy proposed a carbon border tax as part of trade talks to penalise countries we trade with which are not as efficient as we are. That might have to be revisited.

Deputy McConalogue asked about improving the grassland model. Our smart-farming initiative comes in here. We saw it as a win-win situation as the average profit for the farms which took part in the initiative increased by €8,700 while their emissions were reduced by an average of 10% across the board. Soil sampling has a huge role to play as does the allocation of lime and so on.

Senator Mac Lochlainn referred to Mercosur. I have mentioned a few times the frustration we feel when we hear European politicians talk about climate change and the fact that Irish and European farmers need to wake up fast. We are wide awake to the challenges but what frustrates us is that a lot of the same European Commissioners are very anxious to push forward a trade deal with Mercosur countries, including Brazil, which produces 80 kg of CO2 to produce 1 kg of beef. The average across Europe is 19 kg of CO2 to produce 1 kg of beef. My colleague, Mr. Keane, referred to the number of kilogrammes of CO2 required to produce a kilogramme of food. There is a clear double standard there.

In Brazil we see large tracts of land on which there has been deforestation and that are being created to increase its output of beef.

Senator Michelle Mulherin referred to the Citizens' Assembly and the mention of a second carbon tax. I know the Mayo team came to Galway last Sunday with more of the stick in mind than the carrot to frighten the Galway lads-----