Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. The recent publication of the European Commission's communication, Sustainable Carbon Cycles, has sent a clear signal to European member states on the need to increase the ambition and participation of our land managers in the area of carbon removals and reductions. Under the recently updated all-of-government Climate Action Plan 2021, the Government has committed to “explore the development of a carbon farming model”. This commitment is in recognition of the important role land managers will play in the achievement of our national climate change mitigation targets and the potential to reward these land managers for their additional carbon sequestration activities.

To address this action, officials in my Department have formed the carbon farming working group to examine how an enabling framework for carbon farming can be developed. A key element to future efforts required for a carbon sequestration reward model will be the establishment of national baseline data for a range of activities. To this end, and taking a proactive approach, we have provided core funding for a number of relevant initiatives, such as the establishment of the national agricultural soil carbon observatory, the pilot soil sampling programme and the farm environmental scheme, along with a number of European Innovation Partnership, EIP, research projects based on peat soils.

These national research and demonstration activities will have key learnings for future policy in this area, while also leading to a refinement of data to the national inventory reporting framework for greenhouse gas emissions. The current woodland environmental fund, administered through my Department as part of the national afforestation programme, provides us with a pre-existing model for targeted payments to land managers for their positive environmental activities, which will be of significant benefit to the future roll-out of a dedicated carbon farming incentive to the Irish market.

Our farm families and landowners are key to delivering national climate change targets. In fact, they are taking a real leadership role in meeting our ambitions. Offering farm families the opportunity to derive new income streams from their land is something I am excited about working on. I look forward to working with all stakeholders on innovations such as carbon farming and contributing to the future development of an Irish-specific voluntary carbon market.

See this speech in context