Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I commend Cáit, our administrator, on putting together this Private Members’ motion and Deputy Naughten and others who have contributed a huge amount to putting this motion together. As the Regional Group of Independent TDs, we are seen to have a common and sensible approach to everything. This nature restoration law has caused huge anxiety. The way it was introduced and presented caused a great deal of confusion. It also lent itself to those who wanted to scaremonger to do so. We have arrived at a situation where we are on the cusp of the Council of Ministers pass this law. One thing that keeps coming back to me and to others is that if the scheme is voluntary, it will work, but if it is not voluntary, there will be protest. We cannot have the top-down approach people believe is coming from the Government and parties within the Government.

I am a bit older than Deputy Naughten and I put in the shores in the land in our farm back in the seventies, when we were getting grants to drain land. We drained land successfully and it has been used as grassland ever since. I know of many farmers in my locality who did this at the time. If you tell people they must flood these lands to rewet them and try to force that on them, you will hit at their rights of how they should use their own land. The only way we can get people to properly sign up to this is for it to be voluntary.

The amount of public land available will not meet what we would be signing up to. Therefore we will have to look at where we will get the rest of the land. The kernel is that we must make sure that if a farmer wants to rewet their land, it is done on a voluntary basis with proper compensation.

In the past, some of the schemes that were put in place gave compensation for a number of years and then the scheme was taken off the agenda. When people lose part of their livelihood, they need to be compensated for that for as long as they have the loss. Second, many farmers have said to me that if you take the public lands where Bord na Móna is located and rewet that land in a substantial manner, you will create knock-on problems for adjoining farmers who may not be rewetting their land. How can they be compensated for the damage caused to their ground?

The request we have is simple: respect the livelihood of farmers, respect their tradition and respect what they have done to try to protect the environment and nature for generations. What we will do in the future is help them to continue to protect it by giving them the supports they need. Where they give land over to rewetting they should not lose their CAP entitlements for that land. That is key and we need to be clear about what we are giving and saying to farmers. It has to be plain language. They need to know what they will get and that it will be built into the legislation that what they are getting will continue to be there for them for as long as the land is rewetted. It is important we do this and that we do it properly because people are waiting in the wings who want to pounce, create mayhem and upset and put fear into farmers and their families. It is important we do this in a way that we bring farmers along with us, but do not cajole them and anything that is done should be done voluntarily. That is the key word in all this.

Looking back in time to when we were putting the shores in the ground and getting grants for it, the Department of agriculture advised what to do. Farmers put their own resources into reclaiming land. They did so for a single purpose, to try to increase their income and to make a living off the land. For farmers around east Galway, there would be land of 30, 40 or 50 acres on which people were able to make a living. Now, with all the advice they have got from all the different Government agencies on how to farm their land and invest in it, they have been left in a position of not being too sure who or what to believe into the future. Furthermore, we can see from the statistics in Ireland and across Europe, that we have a situation where young farmers are not coming in to farming. There is a decline in the number of farmers in Ireland and across Europe. Farmers are still farming into their 80s because no one wants to take on the succession rights of a farm because it is too much trouble and there is no real living in it. It is hardship. Why then should we bring in legislation that will compound that in the future? I appeal to the Government. It is important we have straight talking, the language is clear and at the heart of all this, built into the legislation, is the word "voluntary" and that no other nuance is put into legislation that would leave farmers thinking something will come at them down the road, which will not work.

Over the years, I have seen schemes brought in that were great for the first year or two and then the money was reduced and something else happened and then the scheme was gone. If you ask people around the Burren or Woodford in my constituency where the hen harrier scheme and other such schemes are now and what they are getting, they will say they were let down. We also had the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES. Many farmers wanted to go into ACRES, demonstrated by the numbers, yet their payments were delayed for much longer than they should have been. That was a breach of faith by the Department of agriculture towards farmers. Farmers find it hard to make a living, but when they enter into an agreement with a Department, it is realistic for them to expect to get paid when they expect to. Farming relies on cashflow and if the grants do not come on time, there is a problem. Farmers are trying to invest in the targeted agriculture modernisation scheme, TAMS, at the moment and some products such as drinking troughs manufactured out of recycled plastic in this country do not qualify for VAT relief, whereas if farmers put in a concrete water trough, they will get a VAT refund on it. We are doing some things that make absolutely no sense or are not practical at all.

It is important that this has been the biggest talking point in rural Ireland with respect to what will happen farmers in the future. It is important we make sure we get this right at least. I have faith in both the Ministers of State that they will do that and that they will listen. I remember when farmers from the midlands visited the House, the Ministers of State, Deputies Noonan and Hackett, listened to them. It is important to listen, but then we need to act in a positive way to make sure that whatever legislation we put in place is the right legislation to make sure people can do this on a voluntary basis, with open arms and can see in a transparent way what they are getting themselves into.

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