Dr. James Moran:

To address the question, there are considerable opportunities for Ireland to be a leader in sustainable food systems and to take to the lead on climate and biodiversity action. I agree that we cannot run the risk of carbon leakage but it is important that Ireland takes the international lead on these matters, particularly at European level and in support of the Fit for 55 legislative package proposal from the European Commission. One of the instruments within that is to look at carbon borders and ensure that products coming into the European Union have the same environmental standards we expect here. That will be essential and it is on the radar of the Commission. Ireland, as a unit, should be taking the lead on that and supporting the Commission in the development of the Fit for 55 proposals.

We must also consider how to upscale the initiatives and the good work that has happened in the Burren. We were in the same place with CAP negotiations seven years ago. We faced exactly the same issues when we were proposing an expansion of the Burren. The arguments were that the Burren is unique and cannot be repeated anywhere else. Unique individuals such as Dr. Dunford, Mr. Davoren and Dr. Parr were involved. It is a unique landscape. From working for years with those people in the Burren, and from my knowledge of what is going on in other places, I can say there are unique individuals in every local community across Ireland. We have champions in every local community in Ireland. Each local area of Ireland is unique and has a lot to offer. If a policy framework can be put in place to harness the power of the local to deliver change, we will have a lot to work with.

The Department, in fairness, recognised in the current CAP programme that the broad-scale national approach to agri-environmental climate action was not going to deliver and was impeded, to a certain extent. That is why it developed the European innovation partnership model, EIP, to look at how the Burren model can be replicated elsewhere. That is why we have the hen harrier programme, the pearl mussel programme and the BRIDE project, which demonstrates the approach in a dairy environment. Nobody can tell us now this will not work in other places. This works in the BRIDE project, in the pearl mussel areas across the west coast of Ireland and in the hen harrier areas. We have tried and tested the approach to perennial olives, almonds and vineyards with colleagues in Navarre in northern Spain. We have tested it in the Montado agroforestry systems in Portugal. It has been tested through arable systems in the UK. It has worked every place it has been rolled out as long as the principles that support, incentivise and reward the production of these ecosystem services are maintained. Long-term payments for farmers must be also put in place. Local services need to be supported and local partnerships established in order to deliver. We now have the opportunity to scale this approach in the CAP strategic plan.

The one big issue I anticipate is that our administrative systems are set up for a national approach, not a more locally-adapted approach. We have put in place proposals to make this happen and it is now incumbent on us to make this operationally feasible. That will involve not the administrative system dictating how a programme should work but an administrative system built to facilitate the delivery of this local support and action across the 130,000 farmers in the country. We are at a cusp here and this can be done, although I do not want to hear anyone anywhere saying this can be done anymore. We have spent seven years proving it can be done in multiple landscapes across Ireland and Europe. The proof is there in the BRIDE project that this approach can be taken in an intensive dairy environment.