Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. It is proposed as part of Ireland's draft CAP strategic plan, which is currently with the European Commission for approval, that there will be two approaches within the EU agri-environment climate measure, AECM. The first approach will be an environmental approach that offers a range of actions that individual farmers may undertake. The second approach will be a co-operative project approach, available to farmers in defined, high-priority geographical areas where a successful applicant will undertake bespoke farm, landscape and catchment measures, and may also be able to select from a general suite of actions under the AECM. Farmers participating in this approach will have the assistance of a local co-operation project team who will assist with implementation of the scheme at local level.

The proposed new AECM will contain both results-based elements, that is, a participant’s payment will be based on achieving measurable results, and prescription-based actions. Prescription-based action was the payment model for previous agri-environment schemes, such as the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, which is just completing. The inclusion of results-based actions will assist in ensuring that farmers will be paid for the results they achieve.

For the results-based actions, the environmental health or condition of the habitat is scored using a range of indicators-----

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