Mr. Tadhg Buckley:

I know it is not, but there is the ambition and a fund there. It is new funding and, economically, it makes sense for the participant in the national retrofitting scheme because if you retrofit your house, it is probably cost-neutral, maybe even beneficial in terms of the energy you will save. Compare that with the ambition in the EIP schemes. The ACRES is not EIP. The water quality EIP scheme that was announced as part of it is for €60 million.

If we want to be serious about this we have to ramp up the ambition. Farmers, like everybody else, will respond based on whether it makes sense. Economic considerations are going to have to be part of the farmers' rationale. If we can do it in a proactive way, similar to the retrofitting approach, where a package is put in place and it makes sense to do this, and it is the right thing to do environmentally, then we will see participation.