Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge Deputy Aird's first contribution in the Dáil. It is a great honour and privilege to have him as a colleague here. We first served together on a regional health forum with the HSE back when were we councillors. To be serving with the Deputy here now is a great honour and I look forward to working with him. I do not doubt his passion in representing the people of Laois but also representing those in the agricultural community, which he has raised here as well.

I am absolutely committed to working to improve the economic, social and environmental sustainability of family farms. The issue Deputy Aird has raised is an emotive one, and I want to reassure farmers who work with peat soils. Land use has a key role to play in the achievement of our climate targets. As custodians of the land, farmers will be central to delivering on those targets. Nothing will be achieved in this area without their buy-in and support. I reassure Deputy Aird that farmers will not be dictated to while I am in this position. There will absolutely be engagement and transparency all along the way.

Ultimately, my Department is examining the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through reduced management intensity of grasslands on drained organic soils. This work is at an early stage and any potential future actions from this analysis will be entirely voluntary. I cannot be any clearer than that. Anything farmers want to do here, they will only do it if they want to and if they are financially incentivised to do it. It is voluntary. It is in the programme for Government, and it is a commitment which Deputy Aird voted for and I will uphold. He has my word on that. I want to be clear from the outset that my two guiding principles are the voluntary and well-funded elements of this. If some farmers decide to adopt measures that involve low-intensity management of their ground, it will be because they have chosen to do so, and that will be fine too.

There are also initiatives at different levels. Deputy Aird talked about the workshop that was referenced in media reports last week. There was an exploratory workshop that happened to consider this. That meeting was about was the experience of practitioners who had worked directly with farmers on the likes of EIPs and locally led projects. It is absolutely appropriate that those meetings happen. There are 4,000 people working in the Department of agriculture. Meetings happen every day of the week and farmers' organisations are not always at them. They are about scoping out and getting key learnings to inform an approach that is taken and to ensure that when I am looking to make financial decisions and put proposals to farm organisations and engage with them on it, I will have clear information on what the experiences have been on the ground.

There is nothing sinister here. There is nothing untoward. It is absolutely the type of work that should be happening with my officials and key practitioners who are engaging and working with farmers and getting their experience back in order that we can make informed decisions when the time comes. Proposals would never be agreed without being put to farm organisations for consultation and engagement. Ultimately, I am the senior Minister in the Department of agriculture and I will make decisions after that consultation and taking on board all those points. That will not happen without having engaged with the farm organisations, the environmental pillar and all the key stakeholders who have skin in the game. I will work with them but I will make sure we are making an informed decision. That is what these workshops are about. It is making sure that any decisions we make are informed. It was always intended that, as this work progressed, there would be opportunities for engagement, discussion and input by farmers, farm organisations, the environmental pillars and all other stakeholders.

I reassure Deputy Aird that I understand the concerns he has highlighted. They are valid concerns, particularly in the light of media reports. I reassure him that this is a process that is absolutely as he would expect it to be, as we scope out and get the learning from farmers' experiences of previous locally led projects. This will help inform any key discussions we have with all the key stakeholders.

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