Mr. Pat McCormack:

There is a major opportunity under the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, to address that from the perspective of slurry storage. Where farmers may have expanded, may not have the full required period of slurry storage and may have a significant level of debt on-farm, but find themselves virtually excluded from TAMS, that is a huge issue. The availability of 40% support under that scheme, or 60% support for the young farmer, can make a difference for young farmers in particular and for any farmer. That is a major issue. I am glad that the Deputy acknowledged in his remarks that there are other sources of contamination. We just had that discussion. We need to play our part and we are certainly prepared to be part of the solution. The move to low-emissions slurry spreading and protected urea, in particular the way it was embraced in 2022 was, as I said, something nobody really understood in 2018. By the time 2022 is over, the vast majority of farms will have seen it rolled out at farm level. There is opportunity to build on that.

Mr. Drennan mentioned clover. The incorporation of clover was huge. The rejuvenation of pastures has been critical, as has getting the pH of our soils right for chemical fertiliser utilisation, which is critical. I mentioned efficiency earlier. It is all about efficiency, which particularly comes into play when the economics and the costs associated with the raw materials are where they are in 2022. That has very much focused minds. As we alluded to earlier, the difficulty is that it takes 18 to 24 months for changes in practice to deliver results. That is the critical issue. We find ourselves two months away from cow banding and potentially moving to 220 kg, when the practice changes have not been afforded the time and opportunity to deliver from a scientific perspective.