Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I want to be brief because this is complex. I thank the witnesses. I want to declare that I am on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine as well. The Water Forum, SWAN and An Taisce came with firm recommendations and I want to acknowledge that. It is always great when groups have concerns but also come up with recommendations. That is always positive and helpful.

I will start with Teagasc and I would have some concerns about its opening statement. There was a key line in the statement from the Water Forum and which stated: "Emphasis will also need to be placed on building relationships with landowners (farmers, peatlands, forestry), facilitating training and knowledge exchange." That was apt and the issue everyone has talked about is partnership, consultation, understanding, public engagement and trust and all of that is important. I see a role for Teagasc in all of that and the witnesses will see that themselves. I understand where Teagasc is coming from, I am a great supporter of it and I studied Teagasc courses as Teagasc has an educational role. There is an issue that many farmers are not necessarily conscious of, namely, their contribution to pollution. Our guests from Teagasc talked about percentages but we did not hear numbers. There are 20 Teagasc asset advisers and there are some from the dairy private sector. Why would there not be? They have a vested interest in that, which is not to be critical of them but Teagasc is a State agency and it talks about the farmers engaging. I would like to drill down into numbers more. I am not saying the witnesses will have that detail today but they might be in a position to come back to the committee in a further written supplementary submission. We need to know more about this.

Why are people not engaging? It ties in with An Taisce, which also made a good submission and it has made recommendations. An Taisce's opening statement states: "Most importantly, we need a solid evidence base that the measures farmers are putting in place are going to work." With all due respect, I was a bit disappointed in Teagasc's presentation. I am not saying it is conflicted but it works closely with farmers and promotes them and maybe it felt constrained in all of that. We have pathogens, fertilisers, herbicides and nutrient management plans and we have a lot of challenges in agriculture. It is not done deliberately but there has to be knowledge transfer, education, training, supports and encouragement. I am not too sure whether Teagasc needs more advisers out there engaging. On the whole farmers want to do the business but there is always a cost factor and it is always about production and the bottom line. That is not to be critical of anyone. I genuinely believe the farming community wants to engage and there are different levels and degrees of knowledge, etc. I would like to hear more from Teagasc at a future date. That is to be helpful, not negative.

Our guests from SWAN talked about the issues of engagement.

One of its recommendations is that the public must be involved in the development of the plans for local water, so it might talk about that.

I am very taken with An Taisce’s submission. Dr. McGoff might just dwell on the issue of what she thinks is the best way to measure this. We must remember the farming community feels under pressure and feels it is being knocked in everything. We have to work in a strategic, communicative and participative way. Dr. McGoff might just comment individually on those points.

As I said, my real ask today is that Teagasc would come up with much more detail on its engagement and how it can address this. Perhaps there might be an opportunity for the other committee of which I am a member, namely, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, to invite Dr. O'Mara in.