Mr. Dermot Kelleher:

Many of our members are upset and angry about this proposal. It seems we are being told not to worry any more about generations of work. Some of this land has been improved by maybe three or four generations and it is good agricultural fertile land today. People's fathers and grandfathers worked the land to improve it. It is shocking that 350,000 ha will be defined as in bad condition in Ireland. The regulation wants to go back 70 years. How can this be achieved without cutting food production and food security? Is that to be cut back?

The ICSA is alarmed that no engagement with the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications has taken place. There has been some discussion about the biodiversity strategy but none about this regulation on nature restoration. How can the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications go gung-ho to Europe and support this? I would like him to study the film "The Field" and Bull McCabe for his homework because that is not a fairly tale. That is how strongly people feel about land they have reclaimed and improved over the years. He ought to go and watch that film a few times so he can realise this is how strongly people feel.

Furthermore, the ICSA is concerned that government representative groups are totally left out of the access to justice. Where is the access to justice for farmers whose land will be taken away and restored or rewetted? We should all be asked whether the Government is acting in the best interests of the Exchequer in agreeing to a clause that will tie the State up in legal actions for years to come. It can fund all these NGOs and do all these things but it will tie up the Government for years in litigation. In particular Article 16 will have to be refused or shot down in its current form. Ireland needs to put up a big battle against this. As my colleague said, we cannot take out arable land equivalent in size to Tipperary and turn it back into a bog or bad land. That is land that has been improved over the past 70 or 80 years by generations of people. People who do not realise the implication of what they are doing are making regulations. I saw big drains being closed by flagstones. That land was first improved by the current farmers' grandfathers many generations ago and now all that work is useless. People cannot stand for this. This will cause mayhem. I will pass over to my colleague Mr. Punch who is better at technicalities than I am.