Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for taking this very important Topical Issue on disadvantaged areas, which are now called areas of natural constraints. Some 52% of my own county of Laois is designated as disadvantaged. Huge tracts of Offaly are also designated as disadvantaged areas. Some €3.2 million is going to 1,700 farmers in County Laois under this scheme. It is a priority that the existing areas in the east and west of the county are kept in the scheme. I note the change in the criteria from socio-economic and biophysical to biophysical and science alone.

The important point for us in the Dáil is that if we and the EU want to continue food production on marginal land or areas of natural constraints, we will have to continue with this modest subsidy, which works out at about €2,000 per farmer. At present, it is based on the district electoral divisions, DEDs, which are very big. They can take in a huge part of a county. That may be fine for many of the areas that are dead certs to be in the scheme, such as the slopes of Slieve Bloom, all of Slieve Margy and that area in the east of the county as well. There are other townlands that on the face of it look prosperous enough, but there are groups of farmers within those localities and areas that are severely disadvantaged. I am thinking in particular of farmers whose land goes up to the Barrow. North Laois would be considered prosperous. However, there are farmers there who have suffered from their lands flooding year after year. Parts of several farms run into flood-afflicted areas.

There is an area around the Goul and Erkina basin down at Woodenbridge on the far side of Ballycolla that experiences flooding on a regular basis. This area is surrounded by land that is as good as anything in the Golden Vale. The Minister is familiar with the Golden Vale as a County Cork man. There is land in south Laois as good as that, but there are pockets within that, such as the area around Woodenbridge on the far side of Ballycolla, where farmers experience flooding year after year. We know that when land floods, it does not go back to the way it was straight away this year or the next. It is damaged for a number of years. The scheme is an essential support. I ask in the next round of the scheme, as part of the survey that has to happen according to the European Court of Auditors, that these areas are looked at for inclusion.

A number of farmers in the existing areas of natural constraints have spent money and used it well to improve their holdings and to make them more viable. A lot of the work has involved drainage works and the likes. We do not want to penalise farmers by having them taken out of the scheme just because they have carried out drainage works. The Minister and I both know that drainage works are not jobs for eternity. Drainage often has to be replaced after a decade or two. It requires maintenance, as does other farm infrastructure. It is important that we do not penalise those farmers that are active and have improved their holdings. The priority for Laois is to keep that 52% of land in the scheme and to pick up some of those pockets throughout the county that were not brought into it before because of the DED method of assessment. They are small pockets surrounded by very prosperous farmers and very high quality land. Unfortunately, there are small pockets there as well as adjacent to the bogs in Laois that were left out the last time.

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