Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To give absolute reassurance to Deputy Berry, everything will be voluntary. It is about providing options to farmers, voluntary options, and ones that will pay farmers. That will help us collectively to meet the challenge of reducing emissions over the coming decade. That is something I am confident we will do, and that is the approach we have taken so far and will continue to take.

Where I am with a potential dairy reduction scheme is that the dairy vision group, comprising all stakeholders in the sector as well as farm representative organisations, has recommended that it should be explored. I have come back to them to say they should come back to me further with what exactly they are talking about here, what it would look like, what exactly it is they are saying we should explore and what should it look like? Once they come back with that, I will consider the matter further. Again, we will be doing it very much by working closely with farm representatives and all stakeholders, but particularly important in this is the farmer organisations. To emphasise, whenever they said they did not want it on the beef side, I very quickly said there would be none. I was absolutely clear that there would not be any. That marries very well with my own approach of backing the beef sector. I continue to engage with them in regard to the dairy vision group considerations in this matter.

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