Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not know the environmentalist to whom the Deputy refers and from what he says I do not think I should read what he wrote, but that is neither here nor there. People are perfectly entitled to their views. The victims of inactivity about climate change are the people and not just agriculture. I make no apology for saying that the balance to be struck, as Deputy Boyd Barrett is well aware, is that milks quotas go in 2015. Our country has been constrained for very many years from reaching our potential in the agrisector, in the dairy sector in particular, because of those quotas which will be gone in 2015. An estimated increase in the national herd of approximately 300,000 cows is a natural consequence of the termination of quotas. On the one hand while we have a very sophisticated carbon footprint situation for our agrisector, we are in a position to produce far more food than we are producing. The Origin Green concept and the promotion by Bord Bia of high-quality food of great integrity is important in a world where there is starvation in many places. We are in a position to export high-quality, high-protein food for those who need it while maintaining our low carbon footprint, as against food that is being produced in other countries, possibly to an inferior level and with much higher emissions. That is one part of our profile which is relevant to our economic situation. If the Deputy is arguing that we should leave things as they are and that we allow others to produce low integrity food with high emissions, I do not agree with him.

The Minister of State, Deputy Tom Hayes, has been dealing with the forestry situation for some time. I refer to the late 1940s when the then Minister, Joseph Blowick, was the first to initiate the forestry scheme. The Minister of State has completed his negotiations and his work on a very strong programme to incentivise forestry. People will not set land aside for afforestation unless it results in a worthwhile income stream, and why should they. Considerable areas of land are very suitable for the growing of particular trees such as spruce, for example. However, the scheme has never been as attractive as it should be. The Minister of State, Deputy Hayes, has done a great deal of work and he will lay out his scheme very shortly.

As I said in reply to Deputy Martin and Deputy Higgins, Ireland is being realistic about achieving our ambitions. Deputy Boyd Barrett will be aware that in my contribution at the UN conference in New York I stated that Ireland, along with its EU partners, has exceeded our first Kyoto Protocol targets. We have implemented a range of carbon pricing instruments, including a carbon tax. We have long-term objectives for 2050 of an 80% reduction across electricity, transport and the built environment, and we are a world leader in carbon-efficient agriculture and food production which is a major component of the Irish economy. The Deputy's environmentalist friend thought fit not to mention that.

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