Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 5 October 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

EU Nature Restoration Target: COPA-COGECA

Mr. Niall Curley:

I am sorry, but I am not an expert on pesticides and the SUR proposal. I have a colleague who deals with that particular issue, specifically the risk assessment and risk management part of it. How it translates with regard to the nature restoration law is that it is going to be incorporated specifically in the first areas that are going to be restored where we will not be able to use pesticides due to the fact that they will be restored to a certain level where pesticides would not have been used. The first areas to be restored, as I indicated in response to some Senators previously, will be in protected areas, which means that we cannot use pesticides. That is the only area to which this translates with regard to pesticides in the nature restoration. I am sorry, but I do not think that answers the Deputy's question. They are part of the nature package. They work together but they are not necessarily related. They are just about the reduction of inputs and the increase of nature together.