Mr. Pat McCormack:

I thank the Deputy for his question. Maybe we gave that impression but the figures that are being discussed at the moment include 2018, which was a challenging year. If the Deputy attended a discussion group meeting of farmers in 2018 and talked about protected urea, he would have been talking about something they knew very little about it. Now, if one talks about protected urea at discussion group meetings, it is the norm.

Equally, there is low-emissions slurry spreading and the benefit it can have. The utilisation and the value put on animal nitrogen at this time is significant. For one reason or another, 2022 has been a watershed year for the utilisation of organic nitrogen on the farm. The difficulty is that Teagasc, the State's scientific farm advisory service, indicates to us it will be late 2023 or 2024 before the evidence will be found of the change in practice. In the mean time, we will have two significant regulations brought upon us that will affect the family farm model.