Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Ambassador of Slovenia to the Chamber. I have visited the country on many occasions. I have attended a number of conferences for the European Liberal Democratic Reform, ELDR, party group in Ljubljana. It is a truly beautiful city in a truly beautiful country. I am delighted the ambassador is here. He is most welcome.

I welcome the Government's announcement yesterday of the ACRES scheme. ACRES stands for the agricultural climate rural environmental scheme. It is a nice name. I presumed the Department decided on ACRES and tied the name into it. It is good. You can cite it quickly. When I initially looked at it yesterday I was pleased. It shows the Government's commitment to focus on climate as it relates to the agricultural and rural environment and how we can reward farmers. We have said across the House, and we all recognise it, that farmers and their representative bodies are absolutely committed to playing their role in environmental protection. They may need some financial assistance. They will need additional skills and training and supports.

This morning, a number of farm representative bodies issued statements saying they were grossly unhappy with the scheme. It appears now that larger commercial farmers are excluded from it. There may be a need for some work to be done on the communication of the scheme. It was only announced yesterday. To be fair to the Minister and to the Department, they are fiercely committed. Yet, major farm organisations came out within a few hours to say that they feel left out and that there was a lack of consultation. They made comparisons with other schemes. This issue may just be around the communication of the scheme. I want to feed that information to the Leader. I know that Members of the Seanad who are involved in agriculture and who are on the agricultural committee will be aware of these statements. I have no doubt that they will come up at various parliamentary party meetings.

I also raise the issue of the general scheme for the remediation of dwellings that are damaged by defective concrete blocks. This is a controversial area. We have had no final decision on the pre-legislative scrutiny on this comprehensive legislation. This may present some possible problems. I do not want to go in too much detail on this, but I will say that we do not have plans for pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill. There are some concerns, which I share.

I want to inform the House that there will be six hours of meetings tomorrow at the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage to deal with this issue. The first meetings will be on the remediation of the dwellings. They will be held between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. tomorrow. They will deal with the MICA Action Group from Donegal, the Clare Pyrite Action Group and the Mayo Pyrite Action Group. This will be followed by a meeting from 3.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m., where chartered surveyors will be before committee, as will representatives from Engineers Ireland. The chair of the expert working group will come in after that. If that was not enough to keep us all going, from 6 pm. to 8 p.m. we will have officials from the Department before the committee. These will be an extensive six hours of engagement. It is important for people who represent those communities and for everyone in the country to be aware that this is happening tomorrow. The politicians are always welcome in the committee, but people can go online and see these meetings. It will be a lively and active interface. It might become more obvious during these meetings that there is a real requirement for pre-legislative scrutiny, because this is a huge issue. In fairness to the Government, it is taking on. It is difficult to please everyone, but we have to get this legislation over the line. We have to help people to rebuild their homes, to rebuild lives and to get on. It is a terrible thing to be living in a house that is crumbling in front of you.