Professor Alan Matthews:

Is enough attention being given to a new approach? To answer the question, I will refer to my initial statement on the need for much greater investment in innovation. I might differ with Ms O'Neill a little bit insofar as I do not see us moving fully away from grass-based livestock production in Ireland. This is largely our comparative advantage. We can tweak that a little bit and we can clearly change land use. I want to see much more effort put into finding ways to reduce the absolute emissions from animal farming. There are really quite exciting opportunities, partly because there has been so little effort put into this in the past. Most agriculture research has focused on improving productivity and efficiency and on getting more output per unit of input. We have very little understanding of the microbes in the rumen or of the behaviour of microbes in soils and manure, for example. We see potential for different feed additives that can reduce methane emissions quite significantly. These will become available within the EU but, initially at least, will only be of interest with regard to indoor livestock, animals that are fed indoors rather than out on pasture like the majority of such animals in Ireland. We need to invest a lot more in trying to enlarge the portfolio of tools and measures available to farmers to reduce their absolute emissions. Having said that, changes in land use will also be important. Are we doing enough to re-envisage that? Again, I suggest that we need to invest much more in conventional opportunities and, perhaps, in some unconventional opportunities. For example, there is some pilot work under way with regard to using grass for grass protein and that may have potential in the future.

I believe the Deputy's second question was whether there is an appetite for direct measures. That may be a question for the Department itself to answer. My sense is that it is aware of the challenge and clearly it is looking for ways to use the opportunities provided by the CAP strategic plan, and I hope it will use them. This is a major opportunity to increase our focus on climate action and other environmental issues such as biodiversity. That is my answer to that question.