Vol. 467 No. 4
283 Mr. Molloy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry if his attention has been drawn to a report commissioned by the Office of Public Works National Parks and Wildlife Service dated February 1994, which came to the conclusion that many parts of Ireland are severely over-grazed; and the action, if any, it is proposed to take in respect of this matter. [13174/96]
I am aware of the internal report commissioned by the Office of Public Works national parks and wildlife service into the problem of overgrazing. My Department recognised this problem as being most pronounced in many hill areas. When drawing up the rural environment protection scheme — REPS — my Department included a specific supplementary measure aimed at combating this problem. An assessment of the problem was carried out by my Department. As a result of this assessment a number of commonage areas in counties Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Galway, Mayo and Kerry were designated as "degraded areas" under the scheme i.e. areas to which the specific measure would apply. The measure as originally devised and introduced in June 1994, did not prove sufficiently attractive to farmers in these areas and the overgrazing situation was not being improved. As a result my Department sought and obtained the approval of the European Commission for a revised package of measures to tackle the problem under REPS. The revised measure, which became effective in January 1996, is more flexible and financially attractive for farmers and is essentially geared towards enticing farmers in such areas to reduce stock numbers to sustainable levels for the five-year duration of a REPS plan. A significant element of the revised measure is the introduction of a group incentive which applies where two or more shareholders in a designated commonage who, taken together, own 50 per cent or more of the sheep on the commonage join REPS. In such cases the group incentive is available to all the commonage shareholders who join the scheme, including those who are already in the scheme. My Department, in conjunction with Teagasc, held a number of information meetings in the areas in question in early 1996 to advise farmers of the provisions of the revised measure.
I assure the Deputy I will keep this matter under review and will consider taking further appropriate action should that be necessary.
