Mr. Tadhg Buckley:

The points made resonate strongly with us. If we want to progress this in the context of the massive challenge that exists, we must do so in a collaborative way with the consent of farmers. It is unhelpful to hear about how laws must be imposed, as in an earlier contribution, or to describe farmers as the biggest polluters. I completely reject that. If we want to achieve this, it has to be a collaborative approach. The essence must be farmer consent on a voluntary basis. Farmers will get behind programmes where they see it will mean a sustainable future for them. We talk about sustainability, which is hugely important. We all know there are three aspects to sustainability. There is the environmental side of it, which we are speaking about a lot today, but also the economic and social aspects. If we want programmes that will work, it boils down to a straightforward principle we have to abide by, namely, that there is a collaborative approach based on farmer consent which makes sense environmentally, economically and socially for farmers and their communities. I grew up in rural north Cork, a community with agriculture at its heart. If agriculture is taken out of our community, there is not much left because in terms of soil type it is not much different from Senator Dooley’s area.