Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Is the Minister saying subsidies are no longer available for clearing land? I understand there still are such subsidies. It is a fact the water is reaching the rivers more quickly than ever before.

We used to have land adjacent to rivers that was able to hold a lot of water. This is no longer the case because so much of the land has been cleared. It has been a false policy on the part of the European Union to encourage the clearance of some land. I am not saying it was a bad idea to clear all of it. Making land more available for food production is fine but there ought to be joined-up thinking on the effect of the land clearance on water storage and the pace with which water reaches the channel of the river, and on the impact on the nearest towns. Given that we have had so many problems in this area recently, is the European Union making any effort to reconsider just how encouraging we have been towards clearing land?

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