Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)

I thank Senator Cosgrove for raising a really important issue and giving me the opportunity to put on the record of the House a reassurance to farmers in her area and all over the country who are concerned about GAEC 2. The Senator has outlined those concerns, and I know from my colleagues here in Donegal and Kerry as well that those concerns are shared by farmers. Much of this is down to the fact that there has been stuff talked about that has nothing to do with GAEC 2, which is a baseline conditionality for this. One's base is what was known as the single farm payment. This is only linked to that. It is a baseline requirement for that. This is something we as a country signed up to in 2023. We got a derogation in 2023 and 2024. We sought a derogation for this year. It is not in my gift to give an extra year; this is a decision of Europe. We asked for it and we were told "No". We are dead in breach. If we do not implement a measurement, we will be in breach and will be subject to fines that would definitely be in the region of €100 million-plus and would come out of my budget to support farmers.I cannot let that happen. We engaged with the Commission and looked to have a set of standards that, because it is baseline, should not impact hugely on farmers' day-to-day activities. That is what we worked towards and what we got agreed. The reason the letters are going out at such short notice is that when I came into this job on 23 January, this was not signed. We had not made a submission. It was the first thing I was asked to do. I engaged with farm organisations and had a lot of consultation rather than just signing it, because I wanted to get my head around the issue and understand the extent of it. I reassure the House that there was really detailed engagement to make sure there was no alternative, and to reassure myself that the measures that are in the proposal will not change farmers' day-to-day activity and that there is a minimal entry element. At that point, I sent a submission to the Commission to say this is what we wanted to put in place. We had been having detailed engagement with key stakeholders like the farming organisations over the course of the past couple of years, during that time. The Commission only approved our proposal on 30 April. I could not write to farmers before then. There is enough confusion. There would be more if I went writing to farmers saying they might be in GAEC or they might not be. We know where the area is. I will talk about the map and the point the Senator raised in a minute. Ultimately, when we got approval and the Commission said it accepted our proposal, that triggered our letters to go out.

How do we come up with the areas? There are a number of existing peat maps that have mapped the whole country. Teagasc has the Hammond map from 2009, which is the one we have used. It is the best one to use in this space. We had to have a controllable area so we can prove to the Commission that we have an area that we can control and examine to make sure the conditionality is met. That conditionality does not change a farmer's day-to-day activity. He can continue to plough, reseed and maintain existing drains and even lay new drainage in a GAEC 2 parcel, subject to existing planning legislation. While it has been in place for 20 years, is that planning legislation in effect? Have people applied for planning previously when they were doing this drainage work? Possibly not, and that is where some of the concern is. I have received loads of queries from farmers wondering if this will stop them from getting planning permission for a house or a shed or something. It is completely separate. It only relates to applying for the single farm payment. The local planning authority does not know what parcel is GAEC 2 and what is not. It is only between the farmer and the Department. We have sent out the maps now. Anyone who is a GAEC 2 farmer has received a map indicating what land parcel on their holding comes in under that. To come up with a control area, we proposed and the Commission accepted that it would be any land parcel with 50% or more peat - it does bring in some mineral soils. We could not have less than 50% peat in the land parcel. If we went for every land parcel that had any peat in it, that would have brought in another 800,000 ha of mineral soils. We think we have got the sweet spot here where we have the right balance between doing what we need to do to meet the baseline conditionality and allowing farmers to continue to have day-to-day activities pretty much unhindered and making sure there will not be a load of farmers fined at the end of this process, which I am very confident there will not be.