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

I thank Deputy Kenny and look forward to working with him in the term ahead.

I thank the Deputy for raising this really important issue about which there has been a lot of concern - I absolutely understand that - for farmers who are working on peat-based or carbon-rich soils. There has been an element of misinformation or misunderstanding of what the GAECs are. I am happy to have the opportunity again to put on the record of the House that GAEC 2 is a baseline requirement under the CAP regulations for the protection of carbon-rich soils. It is legally required to be put in place for 2025 as part of the basic income support for sustainability.

On the question posed, extensive consultation has taken place over the past two years with stakeholders about the land area to be subject to the conditionality and how it is to be controlled. The proposed approach is that, where a parcel has a 50% or greater overlap of carbon-rich soils, then the parcel is a GAEC 2 parcel. To apply a different threshold than 50% would either bring far more mineral soils into the standard or leave too much peat soil outside the protection of the standard, meaning it would probably not be acceptable to the Commission.

While there is no consensus among stakeholders, I believe this percentage strikes the right balance. There is concern around 100,000 ha of mineral-rich soils coming in. We have to use the land parcel identification system, LPIS, at the smallest controllable area to reference. If we did not use the 50% carbon-rich peat soil element, we would be in a position where could bring in 880,000 ha of mineral-rich soil. Nobody wants that. This is a practical approach that meets the baseline conditionality of what we want to do.

On the inclusion mineral soils, the conditionality requirements must be controlled at a land parcel level. Trying to isolate parts of the parcel where activities can or cannot take place is not practical and would be difficult to control from both a farmer and administrative perspective. A clear, parcel-based approach, based on well understood maps, is a fair way to ensure that we get the required protection in place and farmers have no uncertainty as to the requirements. It is in all our interests for farmers to have certainty. This is why we are waiting for a response from the Commission.

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