We have commitments within our climate action plan-----

-----to reduce the volume of fertilisers we use. My Department is working hard to put in place measures-----

-----that will support farmers.

No. If the Deputies actually bothered to listen to my response at the start, they would have heard a number of measures outlined.

I will gladly share with the Deputies my response.

The Deputies can follow up on some of those comments there.

On behalf of the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I am certainly happy to bring the following to the attention of the House: the continued development of the pigmeat sector is a priority for my Department, given the pivotal role the industry plays in the national economic context. It is a large agrifood sector and has shown remarkable growth in recent years. The sector supports approximately 8,000 jobs spanning production, slaughter, processing, feed manufacture and services.…

This morning, the Minister for Agriculture announced the launch of a tender process for the management of co-operation projects as part of the CAP's agri-environmental scheme. That all sounds like a bit of a mouthful but what it actually means is that we are on the cusp of doing things in a different way - a way I believe will be hugely beneficial to the environment, land and farmers. Members may all be familiar with the term "EIP", which stands for European innovation partnership. Over the past few years, many far…

I thank the Deputy. The question he has asked is not the one I have on my page. Perhaps we have moved away from the question that was submitted but that is fine and we can deal with both.

The Deputy has asked about increase in the cost of living. The question I was provided with related to whether the costs of maintaining forests in the first four years have gone up. I understood the Deputy was referring to the general cost of participation in the forestry schemes. That is something which is under general review under Project Woodland. The reference to four years is presumably relating to the way my Department currently administers its establishment grant scheme. Under this, a proportion of the esta…

SI thank the Deputy. To clarify, the ambition of more than 1,040 licences equates to more than 8,000 ha of afforestation. The concern is that we are issuing afforestation licences and they are not being taken up. Currently, in excess of 5,000 ha of afforestation licences have been issued but have not been planted. The ambition is there. It falls on us all to make a concerted effort to encourage and support farmers and landowners to plant. There is great pressure now on land use. We read today in the Irish Farmers' …

It comes down to the fact that the ambitions are there. The rate of planting is a big concern. My Department has engaged with the forestry companies as to why their clients are not planting. We are also going to write to the holders of afforestation licences, that is, those who have been in receipt of a licence for more than six months, to ascertain one on one what the issues are and whether they have changed their minds or leased their lands to a neighbouring farmer. We absolutely need to get down to the granular …

I thank Deputy Carthy for the acknowledgement of the scheme as it is. I am fully committed to the development of the organic sector in Ireland, which is why the organic farming scheme was reopened this week for the second year in a row. That has been a long time coming. An increase of €5 million has been secured in the budget allocation for the scheme this year. Again, this additional funding would facilitate an additional 50,000 ha of land under conversion, which would represent an increase of more than 50% in the…

My understanding is that the rate is during the period of the CAP to the end 2027. At that stage it would be in conversion and organically farmed land. That is the ambition. If we go beyond that, I will certainly be even more excited about it. There is an issue at the moment and the Deputy is correct. The levels are painfully low given our wonderful agricultural nation as a whole. To be at the bottom of the European tables, unfortunately, in terms of organic farming is something that has been personally very frustr…

Absolutely. We are supporting Teagasc and independent agricultural consultants to play a vital role. Anyone who follows anything about organics on social media will have seen a step change in how Teagasc has been engaging with organic farming. Certainly, Bord Bia this year has invested €1 million euro to support the sector. The BioFach trade fair, which is usually held in February, has been postponed until July. I will attend that event. We hope, subject to travel restrictions and in conjunction with Bord Bia, that…

Forestry licensing output in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine was seriously affected by court judgments and their interpretation, which led to a much more onerous appropriate assessment procedure, as well as the need for ecological input for the majority of licences. This was reflected in the decreased number of licences that were issued in 2020. In order to address the delays which had arisen due to these changed circumstances, the Department invested heavily in additional resources and in proces…

I agree that it is important to have a multi-functioning forestry strategy and system in Ireland. I reassure the Deputy that every felling licence issued comes with a requirement to reforest the land. It is sometimes said we fell more than we plant but felling licences come with a reforestation commitment so the actual area involved can be a little unclear. However, the Deputy can be assured that we are growing our forestry area year on year. The commercial timber sector is a vital part of what we do, particularly …

On Deputy Ó Cuív's question, I do not have the specific timelines with regard to licensing applications but it is taking longer than we would like. As a ballpark figure, it takes around ten or 11 months for a licence to be issued after someone applies. Some people get them sooner if everything is straightforward and it takes longer for more complex applications. We are working to bring that time down and we have been bringing it down over the past year or so. It is not quite where we want it to be but we are workin…

On 17 January this year, my Department, in conjunction with the Departments of the Environment, Climate and Communications and Housing, Local Government and Heritage, set out a working paper to put in place a series of actions to support the horticultural growers who are dependent on peat as a growing medium. Part of this series of actions includes the commissioning of an independent expert who will work with all peat suppliers to ascertain the volume of horticultural peat stocks available to growers. This is a key…

I thank the Deputy. As addressed in the series of actions we published earlier this year, there are three types of actions. In the short term, it is commissioning those experts, both to ascertain the volume of peat supplies that currently exist and available to growers, and to examine working with extractors to enable and support them to become compliant. We have had decades of non-compliant peat extraction and we are now at this point where that cannot continue anymore with a variety of court cases, etc. It is imp…