Mr. Gerry Loftus:

Regarding Deputy Ryan's first question on pristine water, that would have to form part of overall climate targets. It feeds in from one thing to another. To be honest, our starting point on all of this should be whether we are prepared to realise where we are. We saw a report the other day that measured 56 countries where we were ranked 48th. We are the lowest in the EU when it comes to making progress. Emissions rose by 3.5% in 2016, 3.7% in 2017 and 2.9% this year, which is 10.1% increase in total. If we do not realise that this must be our starting point and stop the rise in carbon emissions, we are all wasting our time. We can produce all the research and waffle we need and want. We were told by the summit in Poland a week ago that we were going to lose huge parts of the world to climate change through flooding. Depending on how high sea levels rise, it could affect parts of this country such as Dublin, Cork and Waterford. Is our Government looking at things like this? While we invest all this money in cities and towns, are we listening to the scientists and the advice we are getting because we have not been listening for the past 20 years? Our starting point must be to stop the rise in emissions. With regard to pristine water, it involves flow and pollution from agriculture. There is no point denying it is happening because it is happening. It is as simple as that. Farmers are spreading slurry four times a year because we did not make adequate provision for this in digesters and correct our systems. There are no fish left in rivers in our part of the country and in several other parts of the country. In many of these cases, it is because of run off from forestry - Sitka spruce plantations and aerial fertilisation. Farmers cannot spread fertiliser into rivers or streams but forestry companies can do so. That is not a problem at all. We had gorgeous spawning rivers of salmon and trout but the salmon and trout have now gone and nobody says a word about it. It all seems to be fine. When I was sitting in the Public Gallery, I heard an earlier speaker from Teagasc make the point that 20,000 ha of Sitka spruce plantations are required to combat greenhouse gas emissions. There are about 740,000 ha of Sitka spruce plantations in this country.

Their carbon sequestration is less than 4%, and between 20% to 25% of that is planted on the most valuable soil in the world, peatland. Some 3% of the world's surface is peatland. That 3% sequesters more carbon than every tree on every plantation on the globe, yet here we are discussing planting more trees. If trees were doing such a good job on this, why are our emissions at the rate they are? The rhetoric we must listen to is unbelievable. We have been doing the same thing with thicket spruce plantations for 100 years, since the Brits were here, and we continue to do it. It is just crazy. Are we or are we not serious about this?