Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)

I support this motion. In common with probably all rural Deputies from every party I have made a number of representations over the past year with a view to having the waste management scheme extended. The scheme is generally recognised to have been both widely popular and successful in encouraging farmers to make the necessary changes to their on-farm facilities.

These changes were, of course, required because of the need to ensure compliance with the nitrates directive, a directive which several Governments, going back to the early 1990s, had put on the long finger before being forced to comply. This meant farmers came under pressure to make extensive and expensive structural investments in a short period of time that could have been introduced gradually, had the directive been dealt with over those 15 years. The fact that those works had to be completed in a relatively short period has meant that a significant number of farmers will not be able to complete them before the end of this year. As the motion states, this has been exacerbated by a variety of factors, including the terrible weather over much of this year and difficulties in securing the required finance and planning permission. Everybody in the House will accept that this has been an exceptional year for wet weather and heavy rainfall, making land in many areas impassable. The weather has also restricted developments which had been granted approval to start, of which there have been 42,200. In addition, the sector of the construction industry involved in building farm waste management buildings and installing tanks comprises a small number of contractors in various counties. Dependency on those companies has resulted, in many cases, in a number of contractors carrying out between five and eight jobs at the one time. Many of those jobs are only starting now and will not be completed by 31 December 2008.

Should the scheme be closed there will be a detrimental impact on the construction sector in rural areas. Many small construction firms are experiencing the effects of the downturn in house building and the on-farm works associated with the waste management scheme have provided a much needed boost, saving many local construction jobs in the process. Since the downturn in the housing sector some workers previously employed in building have found employment in the waste management construction scheme. If it had not been for the scheme there would be many more in our dole queues and more people would emigrate.

An extension of the scheme would provide a significant injection of money and confidence into the construction sector, together with all the other benefits it would bring to the local economy, so this is an issue on which the Government ought to make a strong stand. The deadline will not be met and more than 10,000 jobs remain to be completed. Many of them have not yet started and they will not be completed before 31 December, not through any fault of construction workers or farmers but because of weather conditions throughout the year and the enormous take-up of the project.

In the context of the budget's impact on agriculture, the Government is obviously not thinking along the lines I suggest. Cutting the money available for research and development through Teagasc may represent a short-term revenue saving but, in the long term, the damage caused by this withdrawal of expertise from the farming sector may well outweigh those savings. At a time when farming is under severe pressure, and when farmers are constantly being urged to use the new situation created by the single farm payment to venture into new production areas such as energy crops, it makes little sense to deny them the expertise and research found in Teagasc.

As with the farm waste management scheme, the cash investment which funding for Teagasc represents can have a multiplier effect throughout the rural economy by boosting farm investment and in areas such as energy crop production, which encourages off-farm enterprise in the processing of bio-fuels. In the current climate, with question marks hanging over the future of a significant element of current foreign investment, it makes sense for the State to encourage indigenous investment and indigenous enterprise, whether through the waste management scheme or by stimulating the development of alternative farm production systems, such as energy crops, and their tie-in with the broader rural economy.

I was struck by the references in some of the submissions to the report of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on the future of farming and fishing in the west to the emphasis placed by many on local sustainable businesses, many of them supported by the Leader programme. For example, Tuatha Chiarraí Teoranta points out that, while 21% of jobs in Kerry are in IDA-supported companies, more people are employed by local businesses supported by Leader and 70% of such companies were successful. In the current climate, boosting local investment in sustainable enterprises, many of them directly tied in with farming and fishing, is the way to proceed. Most of the employment in many areas of rural Ireland has been built around the construction sector and a significant number in that sector work in the waste management scheme project. There is a knock-on effect on local businesses, such as those which supply concrete or other materials for the projects.

We were told during a meeting with officials from the Department that a scaled-down version would be acceptable. I question their claim in this regard because when one is given planning permission for a project which will not be completed, or even started, by 31 December, a scaled-down version will mean that only part of the project will be completed or planning permission will have to be reapplied for on a scaled-down basis.

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