Farmers’ meeting hears concerns over restoration law

By Tommy Moyles

CONCERN over the lack of clarity on what the nature restoration law will mean for farming communities, and how it will be funded, were among the concerns that need addressing according to IFA environmental chairman Paul O’Brien. 

Speaking at a Munster regional meeting in the Abbey Hotel in Ballyvourney last week, Mr O’Brien called for a full impact assessment to ensure targets are deliverable and realistic. 

‘Ministers are telling us it will be fine – we will just get the law over the line and then we’ll design the plan around it, is not good enough,’ he said. ‘Long-term restoration requires long-term resources, not short-term measures. Cap brings us to 2027 these targets are going up to 2050. How is that going to work?’

He also highlighted how farmers are participating in agri-environmental schemes and will continue to do so as long as they are well informed. 

‘One third of farmers are currently participating in environmental schemes and Acres, the flagship environmental scheme with 30,000 initial places, resulted in 46,000 farmers applying. We’ve seen the lime scheme massively oversubscribed, too,’ he added.

Once the meeting was opened to the floor, staying on topic proved difficult. However, the common query surrounding the nature restoration laws centred around the longevity of compensation on designated land. Limerick county chairman Sean Lavery suggested that if land is designated, than compensation can’t just last the length of one Cap lifetime. ‘The life of a designation is permanent, but compensation has to be for a full generation, or 25 years, so that people can have confidence in supporting it. But if it is dependent on the life of one Cap programme to another, we cannot support it because we don’t trust the bona fides of one minister to another. Governments and priorities change, but designations remain,’ he said.

The meeting also heard that funding for environmental measures needs to start coming from the environment directorate in Brussels and not from Cap funding. 

Speaking days before the European People’s Party pulled out of negotiations on nature restoration proposals in Brussels, MEP Sean Kelly gave his reasons why his political grouping was unable to give their support to it. He said: ‘Pass this and we’ll work out the details afterwards. That’s no way to do business and that’s why my group are against it.’

All three government parties had representatives in attendance, with independent TD Danny Healy Rae, the only opposition politician to attend. Green party councillor Alan O’Connor questioned the claim that the proposals were vague when there is a detailed 700-page document on the proposals. 

Broadening the topic out from agriculture to housing, FG Senator Tim Lombard questioned would there be knock-on effects on percolation tests if a locality was re-wetted.