Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister the best of luck in his new portfolio and concur with the sentiments expressed earlier on land use and on the amendments. I refer to much of the land in the west, in particular. In my opinion the farmers are carbon neutral. They have cattle on two or three acres or a cow with two or three acres to herself for the simple reason that the quality of the land is not as good. Research needs to be done to make sure we know what we are talking about. I am worried about what the Minister spoke about in terms of land use. I would like him to elaborate further on that for the simple reason that there are private property rights in this country. There is a big worry that his party and the new Government have an agenda from Donegal to Clare to the River Shannon, and even to a few of the counties beyond. The Minister spoke about trees earlier. Under an environmental scheme, and I have talked about this, one could put 500 or 1,000 trees on half an acre but one cannot blacken areas. There are other ways in which carbon can be sequestered. Have we done research on grass? The answer is "No". Dr. Frank Mitloehner has done it in California and has shown they have sequestered more than what they put out.

We need to make sure a certain part of the country is not burdened with all this. I read an article yesterday in which the Minister said he wanted to go to a €100 carbon tax. The people who will be paying the carbon tax are those who are living in the areas that will be trying to sequester as much as possible for the benefit of the country.

That is what I worry about. I worry that the Minister will cripple the people who do not have public transport and who have the small farms in the rural areas with a massive €100 a tonne. Socially and economically, such people may not have the advantages because of unbalanced regional development and at the same time are expected to suck it up and be the sequesters for the rest of the country.

I worry about the term "land use". While Europe might have different property rights, Ireland has found out in the past few days, with its so-called strategic areas of conservation, SACs, that it is being brought to court because it had not actually made them into SACs. We have to protect the property rights of people as well. Let Europe have its own types of property rights. We have to respect, do the research and reward those farmers in those areas but at the same time not burden them with everything because they have to be able to work the land as well. There are many people talking about sequestering carbon and how we will do it. The managers of the land are the farmers throughout the country and one has to bring them on board and respect them because otherwise, one is not going anywhere.

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