Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 24 January 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals
Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I should say, regarding all this stuff that is coming from Europe, we are not having a go at the witnesses or anything.
The sickening part, I find, however, is that the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is handling so much stuff. The Department of agriculture is answering questions of ours but is not the direct line manager in respect of the various directives, and it is the same with nature restoration. The facts, however, are that, as regards the decisions made by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, the Department of agriculture has to be the big bad wolf in telling farmers what they have to do, and it will be farmers' private property that will be impeded with the nature restoration law and this as well. I hope that this will die a death and that the witnesses will not appear before the committee again before the June elections.