William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted the Minister said everything will be voluntary from the farmers' point of view but he must accept where I am coming from as well. At that meeting where there were no farmers involved, it was announced that 80,000 ha of land were going to be rewetted. Whether we like it or not, a lot of soils throughout this country are peat-nature soils, so it will affect probably every county in the Twenty-six Counties of Ireland. Farmers need support, not mandates. They need incentives, not penalties. Above all, farmers need to be respected as equal partners in shaping agriculture and environmental policy.

If our Government fails to address these concerns, it risks isolating the entire agricultural sector, a sector which is vital to our economy and rural communities and to our national identity. I urge the Minister and all relevant authorities to take immediate action to engage with farmers, include them in decision-making, and ensure that no policy is imposed without farmer input. Anything less would be an insult to the hard-working food producers - I am one of them myself - who feed this nation and many more.

While I have the Minister, I wish to talk to him about the ACRES payments. In County Laois, the number of people being paid under the scheme is 427 but the active participants on day one for ACRES were 599. That means that 172 people, or 29% of the applicants in County Laois, have not yet been paid. All my life, I have been in discussions with the Department of agriculture to the effect that no matter what in an application has to be referred back to the person, a minimum of 85% of the money owed to the farmers should be paid out, with 15% held back.

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