Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Kerrane. The Deputy will be aware that the ACRES scheme is our flagship environmental scheme under the new CAP. Over the course of the past year we have had 1.1 million ha of land scored, representing 25% of our overall total productive land in the Republic, including more than 400,000 ha of commonage. This is a phenomenal achievement and one that advisers and farmers as well as ACRES co-operation project, CP, teams and other stakeholders can be rightly proud of.

In supporting this results-based approach, my Department and the co-operation teams developed a series of ten scorecards to assess the environmental status of the habitats in ACRES. The scorecards include positive indicators such as plant species, vegetation structure and wetness. They also include threats and pressures such as exposed soil and damaging activities, which can include turbary activity. These scorecards also capture management advice to improve the habitat, allowing farmers to improve the score and ultimately their payments.

The scoring of the commonage areas was undertaken by ACRES co-operation project teams and completed over the course of the year. As part of that I was very conscious that turf cutting activity could potentially have a disproportionate impact on commonage scores and especially if the commonage is scored as one field and there is a high level of active peat cutting and associated works. This is why, together with the co-operation project teams, a protocol was developed for the co-operation project teams to ensure turbary and non-turbary areas were assessed separately. This protocol maintains the environmental integrity of ACRES and the environmental integrity of the wider CAP strategic plan. Under the protocol, the active turbary area plus a buffer zone of 100 m is applied when delineating turbary field boundaries. I want to be clear, however, that this 100 m buffer is not applied where there is distinct ideological divide between active turbary and the adjacent commonage such as a watercourse, for example.

In recent weeks the issue of the buffer has been brought to my attention for the first time by some farm representative organisations. I have, therefore, engaged with my own team and I am awaiting a report from my officials as to the likely impact the buffer could have on payments. I will give that very careful consideration once I have received it.

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