Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Sincere apologies but I missed quite an amount of the meeting. I will try not to repeat what others have said already. I will start by sincerely thanking our guests for being here and for the work they do. It is important that the need for conservation, biodiversity and alternative ways of doing things is articulated at committees like this and in society at large, regardless of whether politicians agree with everything that is put forward.

One issue that would be useful to explore further in the context of the opening statements is the fact that we are in a very late stage in the CAP process. The CAP strategic plan has been submitted to the European Commission. The detailed plan was published this week and it is a fairly comprehensive document. There was quite an emphasis in the opening statements on the need for the CAP to do more in terms of meeting the objectives set out. What would be useful for this committee to bring to the Department and beyond is the witnesses' perspective on what needs to be changed in the Irish strategic plan in the context of Pillar 1 and Pillar 2.

I noted Ms Duggan’s comments earlier in respect of eco-schemes. Eco-schemes are a set of options on which farmers need to take a number of actions to hold on to a large chunk of their Pillar 1 payment. I understand the limitations that have been set out in respect of Pillar 2, particularly in the case of the agri-environment schemes, as I mentioned at an earlier meeting. In some instances, the people we most need to reach may, for many different reasons, be partaking in those types of schemes. Will our guests be specific - I apologise if they already have been - about what needs to happen in respect of both Pillar 1 and Pillar 2?

Sometimes this committee gets bogged down in discussing what the CAP needs to deliver, without taking a step back and recognising there are many things we expect the CAP to deliver that could be delivered directly at a national level. We do not always need to operate these matters from within the Common Agricultural Policy. What needs to be done, whether in or out of the CAP, that could be delivered outside of the CAP? Once it does not fall within the remit of state aid, the sky is the limit in terms of what we can deliver nationally through Exchequer funding or alternative schemes.

To return to the general points, I agree with our guests’ objectives. I agree with the carbon targets we have set ourselves and I recognise the need for action. I would not start here if we were deciding what type of agriculture model we would develop in Ireland, but we are here and this is the starting platform. I understand that when people hear about €9.8 billion of CAP funding, they think it is a lot, but in real terms it is less than what was available in previous times. If we are to look at CAP funding as a payment to farmers for carrying out a service, our guests are correct. In every round of the CAP, the number of services we expect farmers to carry out on behalf of society is getting larger. The CAP started off as a way of delivering food to a starving Europe and it has expanded to much greater issues such as rural development, environmental biodiversity, climate action, animal welfare - the list goes on. The difficulty is we are asking farmers to deliver more services with less money and for less money, at a time when their alternative source of income, namely, the price they get for their product, is also under severe pressure in terms of input costs and the market price they receive. This is not easy and there are no easy solutions, as our guests will appreciate. Nevertheless, I would be interested to hear how we can address that.

Mr. Kelly talked about the need for real engagement with communities. The fundamental problem is that, in the context of our climate action targets, there has not been real engagement with rural or farming communities, or at least they do not feel as though they have been consulted or engaged. Most of the people I meet tell me they were adhering to the principle of "reduce, reuse, recycle" before it was ever a term. In any farmyard, there will be a bucket of screws and nothing is ever thrown out. Baling twine is wrapped up and used for something else. Farmers will argue they were the protectors of the land before it was popular, when Government and European policies were advocating the destruction of the land for all sorts of reasons. In many respects, it was farmers and the communities around them who were at the vanguard against some of those destructive measures, yet for many of the people I speak to in my constituency, climate action means additional taxes and charges and their livelihoods being put under threat. They have not been engaged with to any great degree; in fact, they believe their lives are being made more difficult by something they regard as not necessarily their fault. On the other hand, they really want to play a part. Most farmers think in terms of generations in a way most other people do not. In most cases, when they farm the land, they are thinking about who is going to take over the land when they pass on.

Do our guests recognise that we need to get a better sense of what engagement is? Do they have a sense of how we can do that? I do not pretend to have all the answers and I get very frustrated sometimes with Government policy set out under the guise of climate action that is actually destructive. Whatever we might think of some Irish farming practices, at an international level we are world beaters in almost every sector in the context of sustainability, yet moves are made to reduce and reduce. We tell farmers, not only in Ireland but throughout Europe, that they cannot use certain pesticides, for example, but we will import food from the far end of the world where those pesticides are used. We talk constantly about the number of cows in Ireland, while trade deals are negotiated all the time that will see beef and dairy come to European shelves from countries that do not have a fraction of the level of oversight. Unless and until we get to that point, these discrepancies and frustrations will grow. I fear that, as those frustrations grow, it will lead to downright opposition to the progressive changes we need to make.

Our guests acknowledged this in the context of forestry policy. It is a really good example of how to make a mess out of something that should be an absolute success story for our country. The irony is that some of the trees that will be planted will be of very little benefit to the environment and will be planted in places where they will be probably more destructive than if we had left the land alone. We have seen this in parts of the west, where there are swathes of peatland on which acres of Sitka spruce have been planted. It is madness from an environmental point of view and, to many communities, when they hear forestry, that is what they think of.

In the short time that remains, each of our guests might give us a sense of how we can improve that engagement and turn the rhetoric of engagement into a working, live partnership between farmers, rural communities and our shared objectives of creating better conditions for land, wildlife and our country at large.