Mr. Paul O'Brien:

If we are to look at this, it is the EIPs we need to look at. I was with the farm peat EIP a couple of weeks ago. There were about 50 to 60 farmers across the midlands in places like Offaly, going into Roscommon, and about 20% of them have voluntarily allowed the blocking of their drains. Their problem, however, is that they have been given only reassurances that the EIP will continue until June. There needs to be a guarantee that some of these EIPs that will ultimately be designed for policy in the future are given enough time to be able to come back with the real results to see where we are going and its overall impact. The farmers told me at the time that they were not doing any carbon calculations whatsoever. It was just full water to raise the water levels in the peat. In order for this to work, we need to look at all the above. We have spoken about a lot of things here today - biodiversity, carbon, nature restoration - but it is a matter of a full EIP on a bigger scale than just 60 farmers, and for a longer period, to be able to design something that fundamentally will have major impacts socially and economically and in regions throughout the country.

I attend a lot of stakeholder meetings and a lot of the time it is academia talking to academia. To bring that down to a farmer level will be one of the big challenges of the State. Maybe it is a matter of a knowledge transfer in Teagasc or the involvement of the Agricultural Consultants Association, ACA, and people like that to talk to farmers at a kind of catchment level and to explain this to them. All the time, as a voluntary officer for the IFA, I explain to farmers. It should be the State explaining to farmers what it expects them to do.

I appeal to the committee. We have an opportunity here but the nature restoration law timelines in Europe are such that this will be designed in the next couple of months. The problem we will have then is that a target will be set and the reality is that it will then be up to us to try to achieve that target. We may need to look at this at a realistic stage, getting the farmer into action and saying farmers are prepared to do this if they are supported. The reality at the moment, however, is that there is very little evidence of the State providing supports for the farming community if they are to be expected to reduce dramatically their farming activity. A mechanism needs to be put in place to support them so they are allowed on this transition.