Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. I know he is under pressure due to commitments in Dáil Éireann. It shows his commitment to try to come up with a solution to this issue which is a big issue in north Clare. Everyone in farming circles, certainly in County Clare, and in environmental circles understands the huge benefits that the Burren life programme has had in the past ten years and more. We have seen a situation where there has been a contribution in environmental benefits in the region of €40 million and that is in addition to the money that has been put into the pockets of the almost 1,000 farmers who have participated in the programme. We have a situation where the farmers promoted the environment. They promoted green policies, the protection of the flora, fauna and landscape and became ambassadors for the area.For the tourists and bus tours with people from all over the world, the ambassadors or tour guides and the people who tell the story are the farmers who have worked and lived there and derived an income and at the same time maintained what is beautiful and unique about the Burren.

Everybody wants to see a situation where what has been done in the Burren in terms of the environmental commitments is expanded because clearly this is where we want to go. We want to be in a situation where farmers can earn a living from their farms and at the same time protect the environment; they are not mutually exclusive. They do go hand in hand.

In many ways, what Brendan Dunford and his team have proven in the Burren through their work over the years is that they go hand in glove, if it is done properly. Their concern with ACRES in the first instance is that the key decisions were made before meaningful negotiations took place. There are a number of issues. The first is the incentivisation, where the more people did on their farms to protect and promote the environment and to farm in an environmentally-friendly way, the more they earned from it. That is a key principle. That is the incentive.

Second, there was a situation where organic farmers are being particularly penalised. They can derive benefits and incentives after level 8, whereas for ordinary farmers it is after level 4. That is a concern. In addition, with the CAP and caps in place, where is the incentive for farmers to environmentally develop and promote agri-incentives across all of their farms; they will just do it where they are getting paid. Human nature being what it is, why would they?

Another key point is the local involvement of experts who will do a bespoke review of a farm and advise a farmer in a very direct way to get results. It is like boots on the ground. There is no real provision for that in the scheme. That knowledge benefits and is gleaned and gained by the people on the ground engaging with the farmers, coming up with bespoke approaches. That has in the past been fed into the system and has proven to be of great benefit.

This project was nominated by previous Governments for European awards and won. It has been seen as a positive, natural way of marrying environmental concerns and profitable farming where people can live and work on and derive an income from their farm and protect it for future generations and - as I said already - be the ambassadors and the people who promote the landscape millions of people come to our country to see.

I hope that the Minister will get his officials to re-engage and look at the key pillars that the Burren project is concerned about and sit around a table and come up with a solution. These are very reasonable people who want to engage in a positive way because they understand that the Minister is trying to do his best to expand the environmental targets through farming. What has been achieved in the Burren could easily regress if this is not dealt with.