Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It will not be the market deciding this, it will be a land use strategy within the programme for Government. The key commitment here relates to a review of land use with a view to then setting out a policy that optimises rural development, storage of carbon, protection of biodiversity, an improvement in water quality and a reduction in ammonia and nitrogen pollution. That then frames any emissions trading scheme or other trading system. We need investment in forestry, in managing grasslands, particularly wetlands, wetting soils and managing that. We need to identify mechanisms to pay for it, especially in the context of forestry and the restoration of bogs, because it is labour intensive and takes time. The market will not decide this, it will be the land use review based on ecosystems and getting nature-based solutions to compliment each other. That is one of the elements that will be critical. One does not set up a fund and just let the market decide, it is science and the science needs to be funded. It is part of the funded support. Rural communities and farming need to be funded and this is one of the ways we can do it. I do not think that it is accurate or fair to depict this as being akin to the housing market. This is about land-use management in the biggest, widest, longest-term thinking way and that is what we will deliver.