Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

While we are on this subject and I have the floor, I pay tribute to Michael Viney who passed away this week. Michael made his home with Ethna in Thallabawn, County Mayo. He wrote for 60 years of his experiences of living in rural Ireland and of nature. It is fitting that we pay tribute to him this afternoon.

I thank our team leading the discussions on behalf of the Government and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. They are doing an exceptional job. I spoke to my Swedish counterpart and the environment minister yesterday. They are very impressed with the constructive engagement of the Irish Government. I also thank my colleague the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, for his leadership on this. There is no doubt it is challenging. He has probably had a bit more of a distance to travel on this than I did and I pay tribute to him for the work he is doing and his engagement. The Minister, Deputy Ryan, was mentioned. Along with him and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, we are working together throughout government on this. We know the context. We know of the loss of nature and the deteriorating water quality. We saw the floods in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy last week. We have seen extreme weather events in Spain and we are not even in full summer yet. We know why we have to do this.

While we are focused on agriculture this afternoon, it is important to note the regulation goes way beyond agricultural land. Article 4 relates to terrestrial coasts and freshwater systems under the birds and habitats directives. Articles 5 covers marine ecosystems. Article 6 covers urban ecosystems, which will be challenging. Article 7 deals with the restoration of our rivers and getting back our free-flowing rivers, which is very important. Article 8 covers the pollinator populations. Good work is under way here on the all-Ireland pollinator plan but there is so much more to be done. Article 9 covers agriculture and article 10 covers the restoration of forest ecosystems. This is significant and it is the greatest opportunity we have to restore nature in Ireland and Europe. It is ambitious and this is why it is important we are at the table. It is terrible to hear the EPP has pulled out at this stage. It is really disgraceful.

I believe there is an opportunity here to shape this and to work in an Irish context and everybody should be at the table to do that.

It is also worth repeating that we cannot have good agricultural production without healthy nature and clean water, and we cannot restore nature without our farmers, without grazing animals or without productive use of our land. We saw the CSO data yesterday. There is an alarming trend that is going to affect succession on Irish farms so we need farmers on our lands, which is critical.

Like the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, I feel like a broken record on this. What we are saying is that out to 2030 and even out to 2040, we can meet the majority of our ambition in terms of agricultural commitment on State lands, Coillte lands and Bord na Móna lands, and we have been very clear on that. Thereafter, we are talking about possibly 14,000 ha of land that we would require to use and this would be under voluntary schemes. Only last week, Wild Atlantic Nature, a blanket bog restoration project in the north west, paid out €2.4 million to landowners. These are invaluable resources, with money coming into rural communities and embedding itself in rural communities. Farmers love to be involved in these schemes and they are really good schemes.

We also have mentioned consistently that we need to develop a strategic fund for nature and that is something the Government is working on. It needs to draw in both public finances and private finances, and to look towards the EU as well for support. I stressed that to my Swedish ministerial colleague yesterday as well.

I agree that the issue of rewetting has been divisive. Rewetting is not the pickling of the land, it is not flooding land, and agricultural land can still be productive under rewetting. I agree with the contention of Pat O'Toole in the article in the Irish Farmers’ Journal on 20 May that we need to look at demonstration projects and demonstration farms. There are already really good examples across the country and I think we need to look towards those to show the way forward.

I travel a lot to visit farms. My little grey car could be spotted around bogs and beaches, farmyards, piers and harbours, community centres and GAA halls, rivers, lakes and national parks over the past three years. Most recently, I was on the farm of Sinead Moran and Mick McGrath in Tober, County Mayo. They farm a small dairy holding, producing organic milk and butter. It is an amazing farm. It is great to be there at this time of the year when the hedgerows are vibrant, with the ponds, orchards and hedgerows, and all of it thriving. There is an opportunity here that we need to grasp. This is critical. I have also been speaking to people like Suzanna Crampton. I was up on a farm at Spa Hill in north Kilkenny, where there are beautiful karst farms. I visited the dunes of north-west Kerry, farmers supporting corncrakes in Donegal, and farmers farming to support curlews in County Roscommon. I was also speaking to farmers like Bill O'Keeffe and Jim Mulhall in my own county of Kilkenny, and have seen the work that Bryan Daniels is doing up the road from my father's old place in Kilmoganny. Farmers are best placed to lead on this. As we have stated already, anything we do has to be done through voluntary schemes and it has to be done with the support and the expertise of farmers. That is one thing I think we can do with this regulation.

I appeal for leadership at a political level. I know there is an election cycle coming and perhaps some MEPs need to be seen to be vocal on certain issues. I want to state that there are also votes in nature and in restoring nature. For us, it is a political issue. As I saw through the children and young people's assembly, young people want us to act for nature, they want us to be responsible, they want us to show leadership and, above all, they want us to be honest about the challenges we face. In that regard, I am encouraged by the debate here this afternoon.

The Irish Government will continue to engage in a positive frame of mind in regard to that nature restoration regulation. As I said last week in the debate on biodiversity, I hope that if things do not go as we hope in Europe, Ireland should embark on its own nature restoration plan. A lot of the work is ongoing already, and I have seen that good work across the country.

I want to say to Deputy Kerrane that the issue around the mess on communications certainly was not on our part. We have been very clear about this from the outset. I disagree that it is the wrong approach. As to the notion that one could suggest we have been advocating the removal of large swathes of agricultural land from use, that is simply not the case. It is not the case.

On the issue of responsibility, the Deputy could be on this side of the House when our nature restoration plan is signed off in 2025. I ask that her party shows responsibility on this too. It is all very well speaking positively about the nature restoration regulation in this Chamber but her party's MEPs need to act with that same level of responsibility. Again, collectively, we need to show leadership and responsibility and to be honest about this.

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