Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is a planning maximum and the Minister knows that. His officials explained that quite clearly at the meeting in Maam Cross. The planned run-up sets the maximums. Furthermore, I am astounded by the number of times the Minister mentioned "undergrazing". He mentioned the causes of undergrazing, but he did not mention the greatest cause of undergrazing, which was not a lack of interest on the part of farmers in putting sheep on the hills, but due to prescriptions from the National Parks and Wildlife Service that widely destocked the hills and prevented farmers from keeping an adequate number of stock on the hills. This was an issue I argued about when in government and I spent days discussing the matter with the National Parks and Wildlife Service. This is the reason there is undergrazing, not that farmers are unwilling to put sheep on the hills.

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