Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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136. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will seek increased funding for the National Parks & Wildlife Service, NPWS, farm plan scheme in designated areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29583/20]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The Farm Plan Scheme, administered by my Department's National Parks and Wildlife Service, is an important instrument that allows for proactive engagement with farmers in designated sites, to trial and deliver bespoke measures that support biodiversity. Plans delivered through the Scheme have been used to inform the development of national Agri-Environment Schemes under the Rural Development Programme, co-financed under the Common Agricultural Policy.

The NPWS Farm Plan Scheme is being enlarged this year to work with farmers and to apply and test new and innovative approaches for farmland biodiversity. I would hope to continue that process of enhancement next year budgetary considerations permitting.

My Department meets regularly with the farmers' organisations and I am fully aware that they wish to see an expansion of the NPWS Farm Plan Scheme. The matter is receiving close attention and is being advanced in the normal Estimates process and considered in the context of existing commitments, the overall resources available to the Government and the demands on those resources.

In addition, officials of my Department continue to liaise with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in relation to the development of the CAP Strategic Plan, which will also have a significant role to play in the delivery of measures for farmland biodiversity in the next operating period.