Mr. John Enright:

To follow on from Mr. McCormack's comments, Deputy Carthy asked about the implications for our members. If you look at history and what happened in the birds and habitats directive, we have members across the country whose land was substantially devalued by the implementation of that regulation. They have seen their land sterilised and the next generation move away from farming for the simple reason that they could not develop their farms. That was 15% of the land area in this country. To be quite honest, the treatment of farmers under that was horrendous. People were treated very poorly under the habitats and birds directive. It would not give farmers confidence that they are going be treated any better in the future.

In relation to the 20%, we have concerns about that. If you read the European Commission's document, it states that these measures should cover at least 20% of the EU land and sea areas by 2030, and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. It is 20% up to 2030. After that, as far as I am aware, there is no limit. To be fair to farmers out there, they are certainly engaging in environmental issues, but to be quite honest, the way they are being treated at the moment and the raft of regulations coming on them is making it very difficult for farmers to engage constructively with such regulations.

On whether it will be agreed in its current guise, from our perspective, we hope it will not be. The reality today is that the CAP has effectively been hijacked; it is trying to turn the CAP into an environmental policy. It is completely underfunded for what is required under environmental matters. We would say very clearly that if we want to have nature restoration, we need to work with farmers, not against them. At the moment, the direction in which this policy is going is working against farmers as opposed to working with them.