Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

I raise the matter of the proposed off-wintering and destocking regime to be applied in Connemara in the Twelve Bens-Garraun and Maumturk mountain complex special area of conservation. Proposing what will effectively be a six-month withdrawal of sheep from the Connemara mountain commonages cannot work in practice and while whoever drew up this directive might know something about protecting grouse, if grouse were in this area which they have not been for 20 years, they certainly know nothing about mountain sheep.

To produce a regulation that all sheep have to be removed from mountain commonages from 1 November to 31 December and from 14 February to 13 May in reality means from 1 November through to mid-May as it would not be practical to have the sheep back on the mountains for the month of January. This will not work. How can hill farmers who have limited lowland accommodation, which is the situation in Connemara, accommodate their flocks off the hills for half the year? These sheep will have to be fed when they are removed from their natural grazing area and with the increased cost of sheep nuts, now up to €8 a bag compared with €6.25 a bag last year, flock owners would not be able to sustain this extra cost.

If a farmer is in REPS he or she cannot winter the sheep on the limited low lands. The cost of providing sheds will be prohibitive, even if planning permission can be obtained for such buildings in special areas of conservation, which will be very difficult.

Last Monday night, I attended a meeting in Maam Cross with 300 concerned farmers and it is a pity the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government or his representative did not accept the invitation to attend as he could have received first-hand knowledge on how these proposals cannot work. One colourful speaker there in referring to the national parks and wildlife scheme, NPWS, said the acronym stood for "no people west of the Shannon".

A line in the reply from the Minister's office to the IFA's invitation to attend the meeting states: "It has also been our experience that the convening of mass meetings of farmers, particularly in the evening, is not conducive to good and accurate communication and discussion of proposals." When else could one have a meeting with farmers except in the evening? It would have been productive if the Minister had bothered to attend or send a representative.

I am all for preserving the environment and no one is more committed to the environment than I am, but we will not do it this way. The majority of the people who attended the Maam Cross meeting will not support the Lisbon treaty and neither will the Connemara and west coast fishermen because they see European directives wiping out their livelihood and way of life. Let us protect the grouse and other birds and wildlife by taking measures to control foxes, badgers and mink which are now major threats to bird life on the hills. Grouse feed on fresh young heather shoots and, therefore, they need the heather to be grazed.

If the hills are destocked it will lead to greater growth and more hill and heather fires in the summer months and, therefore, these proposed measures will be counterproductive for the protection of wildlife. Last year the majority of calls to the Clifden fire brigade dealt mainly with mountain bog fires. Some commonage is growing wild from undergrazing, such as the Shanakeela commonage of approximately 1,500 acres with approximately 550 ewes. The heather there is growing strong and wild.

Look at what happened in the Burren. Under a directive a number of years ago, cattle had to be taken off the Burren. The hazel and other brambles came up and people are now trying to put cattle back on the Burren to control this as the Burren was controlled in a natural manner for thousands of years.

I urge the Minister to meet the Connemara hill farmers and to work with the IFA to establish a satisfactory solution to this problem in everyone's interest. We need the co-operation of everyone concerned in the interest of the environment and who better to protect the environment than the people who have been doing this for generations.

Once sheep are taken off their natural habitat on the mountains for six months of the year it will be impossible to put them back because mountain cross-bred scotch ewes are bred for grazing on mountain commonage. I appeal to my fellow Galway TDs, none of whom was able to attend the meeting in Maam Cross on Monday night, to ensure this directive does not go through on 1 November because it will be the death knell for sheep farming in the traditional manner in the Connemara mountain range.

I am very disappointed, although not for the sake of the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Hoctor, who has been put in the House tonight to take every Adjournment matter. Her office has nothing to do with the matter I raise and she will make a reply prepared for her without any reference to the serious points I raise. I wish, however, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government or someone responsible would have the manners to come here and deal with this serious problem. They did not have the manners to attend the meeting at Maam Cross on Monday night. I assure the Minister of State that this will not work and I ask her to take this message back.

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