Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Minister of State that much work has been done. I will go back to my point that farmers still have no baseline and they do not know what they are doing on the farms. I will stress that knowledge is power. If the McGreehan farm knew what tit was putting out, then it could reduce and understand what it needed to do best. It could buy into that and could work with the Department on the soil and hedgerows. It could add to it while understanding what it is that it needs to do because at the moment farmers are in the dark on that.

The Minister of State also said that the calculations are the responsibility of the EPA but the EPA is a State body. I would urge the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine, as well as the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, which has a responsibility in this area too, and the EPA to work together to work to make sure farmers know what they are emitting, what they are sequestering and what they have to do to reduce that balance.