Mr. Laurence Fallon:

I thank the Chair and Deputy Kerrane. Earlier, I thanked the people from the constituency for their work. I also thank Deputy Kerrane for her work, because she has been available at all times. We appreciate this greatly. The Deputy asked a question about an engagement with the NPWS. There may have been engagement, but that consisted of a visit and a look at what was there. There was no disagreement regarding the damage done. I had occasion to meet some of the people involved at the National Ploughing Championships recently. I got a clear view. A perspective will be arrived at when a report is received from somebody else. My clear view is that the NPWS should be assessing the damages that have been done now. Equally, as the custodians and policers of the SAC on behalf of the EU, it should be proposing a solution to restore the SAC. It is fine to say it will be dedesignated, and this may be something that will happen down the road. Most people around the turlough, however, do not necessarily want it to be dedesignated. We want it to be restored. The engagement, therefore, has been very minimal and there needs to be much more.

The only financial supports we have received, and we appreciate them greatly, was in the context of having our roads raised and having unlimited access to pumps to keep water out of houses. Other than that, though, there has been no funding. Farmers have faced a significant cost in the loss of single farm payments. As far as I am aware, and as a farmer who has lost some payments, we are being treated the same as every other single farm payment applicant. If a mistake is found, then we pay the price. The mistake we have is that the turlough has not receded to a level low enough to allow us to have the land available.

To clarify one point, at no stage have we any desire to lower the level of the lake below its natural high level. I will go one step further and say that the pipe that we planned to install was never going to have the capacity to lower the lake below the perimeter of the SAC. The lake is now much bigger than the SAC because it has expanded onto the farmland around it. Our pipe was not going to affect the SAC in any way because it was only, at best, going to lower the water level to that of the perimeter boundary of the SAC. Everything that happened after that would be the natural flow.