The first two items on the Adjournment are being taken together. Each Deputy will have five minutes and the Minister will have ten minutes to reply.
Adjournment Debate. - Sheep Quota.
Farmers received a letter two weeks ago about de-stocking and those in rural areas are devastated by it. We knew there would be de-stocking but we did not expect the amount by which farmers would have to de-stock. A year ago, during the culled ewe scheme, farmers de-stocked and they thought when it came around on this occasion it would not be as severe.
The Minister has taken away a major source of income from western rural areas. If such income was lost in an industry, there would be uproar and a task force of some sort would be set up. We have taken money from farmers' pockets. I have heard of case after case concerning this issue. I met one client whose stock has been reduced to one ewe while another lady had a quota of 30 but was de-stocked by 33 sheep. She is now getting something back because we were told that no farmer should be de-stocked by more than 50%.
Those with green land and commonage are feeling the effect on their commonage. We have deprived farmers of their land and made it worthless. Commonage used to be worth money but now it is a liability. It is sad the Government, Dúchas, Europe or whoever has done that. Next week there will be a public meeting of the IFA in Castlebar and I hope the Minister and officials from his Department and from Dúchas will attend because there is outrage in the county.
It took five years to organise de-stocking and send out letters, but the appeals unit has not even been set up yet. It should have been in place before the Minister announced de-stocking. I call on the Minister, the Department, Dúchas and everyone involved in de-stocking to freeze the scheme and sit down with the IFA and the farmers to work out a solution that will not be so severe for rural areas. That is a reasonable request because people were caught unaware. They knew there would be de-stocking but not on this scale. The Minister should sit down with Teagasc and the planners to work out an independent scheme, without involving Dúchas, the Department of Agriculture and Food and An Taisce, which objects to this on a regular basis. An Taisce and Dúchas have destroyed rural areas.
The Minister knows that farmers have been leaving the land in recent years. In the hill sheep sector we have destroyed an industry in which people made their livelihoods and handed it on to their families. We have made their land worthless.
The Minister must freeze this scheme, commission an independent study and sit down with the farmers and the IFA to work out a deal. This has devastated rural areas and it is wrong. Not only does the scheme affect commonage land, it will in furture affect green land. The Minister is from a rural area in County Galway. Why did farmers in Galway only have to de-stock by 20% when there was de-stocking by 40% in my constituency? Is it because there is a senior Minister from that constituency at the Cabinet table? That Minister told farmers in County Mayo that this would be good for them, for farming and for rural areas and that they would not have to de-stock by more then 15%. Some farmers have had to de-stock by between 30 and 70%. That is an awful cut in anyone's income. If my income, that of the Minister or that of someone working in the private sector was cut by €15,000, we would shout and roar.
The Minister must look at this again and consult the farmers. The de-stocking level is too high. Since the culled ewe scheme, the Minister, the Department and Dúchas must admit that the mountain areas were improving again. This must be re-examined.
I welcome the opportunity to raise this important matter. County Mayo is the third largest county in Ireland but it is a rural area with many farmers. A national emergency would be declared if what is happening there happened in Dublin. It is like a factory with 100 employees being lost every week and it is a terrible tragedy.
County Mayo is carrying 37% of the overall de-stocking of the country. It accounts for nearly two out of every five sheep de-stocked. There are de-stocking levels of 60 to 80% while the figure is about 20% everywhere else. If these levels of de-stocking are introduced immediately, they will affect farmers' payments from January.
The fact that the letters issued after the Nice referendum was unfortunate as the breeding season has started and ewes and rams are already in place. In the area where I live there are 70 farmers involved in 18 commonages. They had an unfortunate experience having been told last February that the destocking rate would be 16% when in fact it is 17.68%. That is regrettable because they worked on the assumption that it would be 16% rather than 17.68%. There is an issue of natural justice here. These farmers who were forced to destock do not know the reason. They have tried to get the framework plans but were unable to obtain the information they need to get an understanding of what this is all about. I demand that the Minister and his officials make this information available forthwith to the farmers of Mayo. Justice is demanded.
The method of calculation is suspect. The lowlands destocking rate is reduced by the amount of a farmer's commonage. The farmer ends up with a low stocking level across all his or her green land. The farmer's land is devalued and his or her income is decimated. The financial loss caused by Mayo's sheep quota reduction of 55,000 is devastating for many rural DEDs. The loss of the sheep quota alone takes in excess of €1.5 million per annum out of the struggling rural areas of Mayo. When one considers that the CLÁR programme represents a commitment of only €12 million per annum spread over 16 counties, the Government is removing far more from the depopulated DEDs than it will ever put back through the CLÁR or any other programme.
There is clear discrimination against key producers who have commonage and lowland. This unnecessarily harsh destocking rate is grossly unfair. Farmers have invested substantially in sheds for wintering and having been encouraged to do one thing by one policy will now be deprived of the ability to pay for improving their enterprise by a hopelessly mismanaged change of policy. This does not make sense. This is about destocking people as well as sheep. It is about taking people from the land which is the final insult.
It is clear from the census of population that north and west Mayo are already in crisis and need special status. If the Government is interested in retaining people in rural Ireland this is a strange way of going about it by removing the financial viability of whatever subsistence farmers have still left on the land. What is the point in filling potholes if there are no people to drive on these roads?
The money lost to the Mayo area will be lost to the shopkeepers and all who derive a livelihood from the area. They will suffer the knock-on effect as more houses and small shops close. It is ironic that the EU and Government policy which encouraged farmers to increase stocking levels has undergone a major U-turn and farmers are expected to pick up the tab for the environmental mistakes of EU planners. It is a right mess. Farmers have a moral right to compensation as they were misled by these institutions. Farmers are being driven off the land and their land has been grossly devalued. Where is the future for young farmers seeking a quota or trying to build on the land? Their future is then removed, they cannot farm and they cannot build. We deserve equality.
In summary, there are two basic issues here: that non-commonage land should be taken out of the equation and the anomaly that exists under the present stocking calculation, based on previous sheep numbers, will have to be replaced by a stock carrying capacity, based on the amount of shared land owned by each individual on the commonage and on the overall stock carrying capacity of that commonage. In fairness, based on the time of year when ewes are already pregnant destocking should be deferred until July or August 2003. This will be the first step on the road to equality for Mayo farmers. Mayo farmers matter. We have suffered enough, let us not suffer more.
Ar an gcéad dul síos ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabhail leis an mbeirt Teachta as ucht an t-ábhar tábhachtach seo faoi chaoirigh Mhuigheo a ardú sa Teach. Déanaim comhgairdeas leis an Teachta Cowley as a bheith tofa mar Theachta Dála don chéad uair agus le mo shean-chara Mícheál Mac an Fháinne as a bheith tofa arís. Tá mé féin agus an Rialtas ag súil le cinnireacht agus comh-oibriú na dTeachtaí i gCondae Mhuigheo ins na blianta atá romhainn amach.
Last month, our Department wrote to over 6,000 farmers with commonage about their permitted stocking levels for the 2003 ewe premium year. These figures were preliminary calculations done by our officials, on foot of the commonage framework plans. In 4,183 cases there was a requirement to destock on existing levels. Over 650 farmers who previously had ewe quota frozen will have some restored, and the remainder will not have to destock any further. The average net destocking requirement is 20 ewes per farmer-flockowner. While letters have issued to a number of farmers requiring them to destock to single figures or to destock completely, the position is that all such farmers can retain a flock of ten ewes, on which premium can continue to be paid.
It is important to bear in mind that the letters on stocking levels were sent to farmers as part of an agreement that our Department negotiated with the EU Commission in 1998, which secured generous REPS payments of up to €242 a hectare for farmers with commonage. Getting this agree ment was a major negotiating achievement for Ireland in unfavourable circumstances. It was negotiated at a time when over-grazing by sheep, particularly on commonages in the west, had reached a point where the European Commission had threatened to stop all REPS payments on those areas. The Department already had to stop processing REPS applications in the six western counties of Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Galway, Mayo and Kerry which that included large areas of commonage. However, the negotiated agreement with the European Commission turned the situation around. As a result, we are now paying an additional €7 million a year, on top of the basic REPS payment, to the 3,700 farmers with commonage land, who are in REPS. This represents an average annual additional payment of €1,800 per farmer, and brings the total average annual payment for REPS farmers with commonage land to €7,100.
It was a condition of the 1998 agreement with the European Commission, that we prepared individual framework plans for each commonage. A framework plan is a scientific assessment of the commonage by two professionals – an agriculturalist and an ecologist. The exercise was co-ordinated by officials of our Department and Dúchas. They selected the planning teams, trained them, and checked each plan as it was submitted to ensure consistency. Each framework plan describes the state of the soil and vegetation on a commonage and recommends the level of stocking that it can carry. In many cases, the number of sheep needs to be reduced to protect the commonage from damage, or to allow it to rejuvenate, if over-grazing has already damaged it.
Shortly after the agreement was negotiated with the European Commission, it became clear that the framework planning exercise would be a major one and would take much longer than had been estimated. To secure the new REPS payments, it was necessary to put an interim arrangement in place. This was a 30% reduction in ewe numbers in the six western counties, which was done by freezing sheep quota across the region.
Given that most of the framework plans are finished and we know the exact state of each commonage, our Department has been able to calculate the appropriate stocking level for every farmer. Over 600 farmers who had quota frozen in 1998 will now have some restored. Others can remain as they are. Regrettably, there are cases in the six western counties and elsewhere, where commonages are still overstocked. I appreciate the destocking figures in parts of County Mayo are above the average, but unfortunately all that shows is that the over-grazing problem was at its worst in those areas and there is no alternative but to rectify it now, before it is too late.
The destocking arrangements are an integral part of the agreement with the European Com mission, that was secured in 1998, which allowed us to make such generous payments in REPS. Any attempt to get out of implementing them would jeopardise those payments. Nevertheless, we have gone to great lengths, within the terms of the agreement, to make the arrangements as flexible as possible. Farmers have a full year to bring their sheep numbers down to the correct level, so they can choose the best time to sell them. There is no such thing as it being mandatory to get rid of them now. There is flexibility and there is time. Even on commonages with the most severe over-grazing problems, no farmer will have to destock by more than 50% in 2003 and no farmer will have to destock, below ten ewes. Farmers with small areas of commonage, may opt not to farm the commonage or claim any area-based payments on it, and in that case no destocking will apply to them.
We will shortly announce details of an appeals process. Since the framework planning was a scientific exercise, appeals can only be on a scientific basis. The appeals process will be similar to the existing SAC system in that a commonage that is the subject of an appeal, will be reassessed by other professionals. Groups of farmers who lodge appeals will be given financial assistance towards the cost of the reassessment of their commonage. This again shows generosity on the part of the Government.
Farmers, who are subject to destocking will be required to join REPS or a complementary national scheme to be operated by Dúchas. I understand the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, has proposals with the EU Commission for a scheme based on compensation for ewes destocked. Farmers will have a year to choose which scheme they want to join and to submit an application for the scheme of their choice. Again an option is being given.
Any change to the 1998 agreement would have to be renegotiated with the EU Commission, which would be serious. In the context of the recently announced consultative process on REPS – I made a personal public appeal to anybody who had ideas about REPS to make a submission before the deadline to the Department on the issue and I reiterate that appeal tonight – the participating stakeholders will have an opportunity to raise the issue.
The design and supervision of the framework planning process has ensured that it was carried out in a consistent and equitable way. The appeals system will be a transparent method of resolving any doubts about individual plans. However, I emphasise again that destocking is the other side of an agreement that has allowed us to pay large amounts of money to REPS farmers with commonage since 1998. The payments have been flowing and we have ensured they were not interrupted. We negotiated the agreement and got the flexibility. We cannot go back at this stage. We could lose all. By any standard, €242 per hectare is a generous payment, and it is critical that common sense prevail in order to protect and sustain these payments for all farmers.