Mr. John Keane:

Similar to what the other farming organisations have said in terms of being consulted, there has been absolutely no consultation and there has been no impact assessment conducted on it either. There is a bigger question here in terms of the economic assessment, which will be carried out on what effect it will have on farmers. The bigger question, from a rural economy point of view, is that if you take the land area being talked about out of productive capacity, what effect will that have on the wider business circle that supports farming communities? There is going to be an impact on your local co-ops, your local garage man, your local feed merchant and your local vet, who we will be speaking about later A figure was mentioned earlier by Mr. Eddie Punch of 871,000 acres or thereabouts having to be rewetted. That is an area a little smaller than the size of Tipperary. If you want an impact assessment of the food that is produced out of the county of Tipperary, I think there is €1 billion worth of exports of dairy alone from Tipperary. In terms of an impact assessment, it is not very difficult to figure out what impact that is going to have on the country as a whole.

In terms of the impact on food and on forestry, and coming back to an earlier question Deputy Carthy asked, in terms of objections raised, I think Sweden and Finland are the only two countries that raised an objection. The Swedish have carried out an assessment which shows that this will impact on 30% of their land area, from which nearly the majority of their forestry is supplied, and that is one of the major economic drivers in that country. Naturally, at a time of high input prices and when wood-related products are scarce, they are concerned about that. Similarly in Ireland, if you are looking at it from a food security point of view, we have no definition or indication as to what soil types are going to be affected or the areas it is going to be in. Is it going to be tillage, is it going to be dairy or is it going to be beef? What impact is that going to have not just in this country but in terms of international exports?

There is a huge task to be done by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. To follow up on a comment made in terms of funding, many different funding streams have been mentioned. I think there are 12 potential funding streams laid out in the document. However, the only funding stream committed to is €100 billion for the implementation of biodiversity measures. This may give members an insight into the foresight and support from the origins of this document not just for the agricultural sector but for rural economies if the single line item referring to funding is dedicated solely to ensuring biodiversity measures as opposed to the economic impact it is going to have on landowners.

Mr. Liam Hanrahan wants to make a brief comment.