Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Regulations are being imposed on rural Ireland. Farmers and rural dwellers are becoming exasperated with the amount of regulation that is coming down from the EU. It is leaving a sour taste. The latest one is the ban on burning green waste. I am most certainly not a climate change denier, but we are being told by environmentalists that it is very good for the environment to leave growth on our ditches for three or four years before trimming and cutting it as that creates a greater carbon sink. However, making farmers mulch the green waste will mean ditches will be cut every year because that is the only way they will be able to manage the waste. Common sense is not prevailing. Trying to achieve emissions reduction and a greater carbon sink will be thwarted by the regulation being imposed from Brussels.

The restoration of land is the latest issue that is coming across the table at us. We had the National Parks and Wildlife Service in the agriculture committee in private session. It told us that land restoration would be voluntary and would not be imposed on any private landowner but when the witnesses were quizzed on that, we found that while it would be voluntary, those of us who do not comply would not get the single farm payment. They will not force us into it but they will break us financially.

Has there been any assessment done on the impact of rewetting on adjacent lands? Bord na Móna has rewetted some of its bogs and landowners in the vicinity find that their land is incapable of the same productivity it had before the rewetting. We are told to carry out environmental impact assessments in various areas. In my view, before any land is rewetted, an environmental impact assessment needs to be done on the impact the rewetting will have on people who are trying to farm in the locality. That is essential.

Some years ago, we designated a fair sceilp of land in this country. When those farms were designated farmers were promised there would be schemes to compensate them and make designation financially worthwhile for them. The schemes were in place for two or three years. A typical scheme in my county is the hen harrier scheme. For a couple of years, people got a reasonable payment under that scheme but the payment has now evaporated and people are left with their designated land. The capital value of that land is 20% of what it was before it was designated. The principal reason for that is that it cannot be afforested. By designating land with the stroke of a pen, Brussels took away 80% of its capital value and got away with it. The same thing is now being proposed in regard to the restoration of land. This will destroy the capital value of land. The landowners will get a scheme for a couple of years but in the long run the capital value of their land will be totally destroyed.

Afforestation has a huge part to play in our battle against climate change. It took us a year and a half to get a forestry strategy for the forestry industry finally approved by Brussels. That strategy will not work because the land we should be planting on is being barred from planting. We cannot plant now on peat land, designated land or unenclosed land. I was at a conference on climate change and agriculture in the Aviva Stadium a couple of weeks ago. The common theme among all the experts who spoke that day was that afforestation must increase if we are to achieve a reduction in emissions by 2030, yet here we have a strategy coming back from Brussels that will ensure we do not achieve our targets and afforestation will not happen. Some people like to tell us there will be more afforestation on arable land and better quality land but that is bunkum. It will not happen. The competition for land will ensure it will not happen. We must go back to the drawing board with Brussels on afforestation.

As Chair of the agriculture committee, I recently met my Finnish equivalent in Leinster House. Some 75% of Finland is planted and the vast majority of the country is under peat. I asked her how they cope with the forestry policy coming from Brussels. While her English was not super, the message she gave was very clear. The Finns do not impose the forestry strategy coming from Brussels on their forestry owners. They completely ignore it, whereas we will ensure it is brought in here. We will not meet our afforestation targets and thus we will have a far greater battle to meet our emissions targets. In the programme for Government we promised we would plant 8,000 ha per year but we will not plant 8,000 ha in the lifetime of this Government. That will be a sad indictment on us, one which will come back to haunt us in years to come.

On the nitrates derogation, we have gone from 250 kg N/ha to 220 kg N/ha. We are not going to go back over that and fight that battle again but we have two years to convince Brussels that we are entitled to a derogation. If one travels around mainland Europe one will see none of the green fields that we have in this country. The dykes in Holland and the countries in central Europe do not compare with the water courses in this country. Even with all the talk about our water quality, we still have the third best water quality in Europe. There has been huge investment in our dairy industry for many years. It is the driving economic force in rural Ireland. If we allow the Commission to dictate by reducing the limit towards 170 kg N/ha, we will cripple the dairy industry and rural Ireland.

I spoke in this House when we were trying to get planning permission for Tirlán to build the new plant in Waterford. It was intended to diversify our cheese products so that we would not be so dependent on the UK market post Brexit. The plant has been built and is ready to rock and roll but we will not have the milk to fill it. There is another new powder plant beside it and the stainless steel we put in place for the processing industry will be lying idle. The main thing that will happen is young people will walk away from the industry. The dairy industry, which saved this country in many times of financial stress, will be economically ruined.

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