Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank Deputy O'Sullivan for allowing me to go ahead of him as I must go to the Dáil Chamber shortly. I have a question for the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. Perhaps Ms Egan will take this question. I am not asking the Department to comment on reports in the media at the weekend that tensions are mounting in the coalition over the scale of carbon emission cuts that will be required for farmers to deliver. It seems there is pressure from one sector to go for the lower range of emissions reductions, which is a 22% cut, whereas in principle a 30% cut is desired. Does the Department believe this is what will actually be needed? If this is what is needed, would we need a cut in the herd to achieve a 30% reduction? I must point out that the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, has written to the Taoiseach and the letter was circulated to us. The IFA quite rightly points out that there are special clauses in the Act for the place of agriculture and the characteristics of biogenic methane. Does the Department believe that this has made us a hostage to fortune by having it in the Act in the first place?

My second question is for Mr. Callanan. I am sorry if I am asking Mr. Callanan to repeat anything he may have said earlier because I had to leave. Feeding seaweed to cows seems to be the way the Department plans to reduce emissions, rather than any attempt to cut the herd. It reminds me of the idea that new technology is going to be the saviour for us in the future. This comes up repeatedly, whether we are talking about gas and oil exploration or data centres. We are told they will all have new technology and we should not be worrying about them. Now we have been told of a new form of technology that involves feeding seaweed to the herd. I am aware that the tests have shown it reduces methane in cows. Mr. Callanan has said that this should happen in the first and second carbon budgets. Do we know, and will we know in time, what will happen after months and years of feeding seaweed to the herd? Do we know the effects this would have on output of milk and meat? Do we know the environmental impacts of having to manufacture to scale that amount of seaweed and the additives that come from it? What risk might it have on other elements of our ecosystem in untested technologies?

I believe we are dodging the discussion on cutting the herd because it is not about the 140,000 farming families that have been represented; it is more about the farming model we have created in this country, which involves a vast amount of export of animals to the Middle East, Africa, China and so on, rather than facilitating family farms to produce the food we need in an ecological way and subsidising them properly to produce that sort of food for us. Mr. Callanan said that farmers are driven by the market but surely the consideration must be that the system itself is broken for most farmers and it is broken for the environment. It is a bit of a loaded question but perhaps the witnesses could try to answer it.