Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In my experience of engaging directly with farmers and the agricultural community, those who most understand the challenges of sustainability and what is happening in nature in front of our eyes are those who earn a living from it and engage with it every day on their farms with their herds. I fully understand the anxiety about what the future could bring. It is a future and an anxiety that stretch beyond our agricultural community. Of course I understand that this issue is of fundamental importance to farmers. This is why the climate action plan the Government will launch today is a plan for our entire country and every sector of our society and economy. We are asking and calling on all to play their part in responding to this great challenge.

It is in recognition of the issues that Deputy Canney raised that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, worked so hard to get where we are now with CAP funding and to put in place the funding that would be needed to respond to the issues the Deputy is referring to. Deputy Canney will be aware of the strategic plan in CAP, which has funding of €3.86 billion. Pillar 2 of that plan is focused on how we can invest in the future and focus on the investment and infrastructure that will be needed to cope with change. There is increased funding for the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, the dairy beef welfare scheme, the sheep improvement scheme and the organic farming scheme. Funding is being put against all of those programmes to respond to the needs farmers and the farming community are raising directly with the Government and through Deputy Canney.

The Minister and the entire Government believe that Irish farming has demonstrated again and again its ability to put in place sustainable practices to bring the best of organic farming into farms all over the country. We will harness that commitment and co-operate and work closely with our farmers to move to a future in which they are central. Along with all of us in the country, farmers will make changes and we will support them in doing so to help us respond to the existential challenge we face.

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