Michael Ring
Ceist:22 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food when details of the framework document will be announced affecting farmers with commonage in their REP scheme applications. [10887/99]
Priority Questions. - Rural Environment Protection Scheme.
The revised REP scheme requires that a framework plan be drawn up for all commonage lands. The preparation of the framework plans is being carried out under the supervision of my Department and the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands. It will take some time before framework plans will be available for all commonages. However, it is expected that the first plan will be completed within the next couple of weeks.
Pending the availability of commonage framework plans, my Department and the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands have put an interim national commonage framework plan in place. The interim plan involves a destocking equivalent to 30 per cent of mountain ewes for flock holders who use commonage in six counties, Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Mayo, Galway and Kerry – those counties identified as having overgrazed commonages.
Commonage framework plans will determine the rate of destocking, if any, on individual commonages and the level of stocking allowed on commonages under the interim plan will be reviewed when the individual commonage framework plans are available.
Is it the Department's intention that there will be no ewes or sheep on the mountains? The Department of Agriculture and Food has given in to the culture brigade, who want no sheep on the mountains of the west. Every time I put down a question to the Minister, I am told the framework document will be ready in a few weeks. When will we see it? On 4 December last there was a destocking scheme, but we do not know whether farmers did enough destocking or if they will have to do more.
A question please, Deputy.
Is it the Department's plan that there will be no sheep on the mountain? I want a simple answer to my other question. You are right, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, to put pressure on us to ask questions, but will you ask the Minister to tell me when the framework document will be ready? I know it will not be before the local elections because it will contain bad news for sheep farmers.
I did not know sheep could read. As I said to the Deputy, the document will be out in a couple of weeks. A large number of inspectors have been trained for the framework plan in respect of individual commonages. The Deputy will appreciate that giving misguided messages is not the way to restore confidence to the sheep industry. It is the Department's intention to include as many people as possible. There will be sheep on the mountains, there is no question about that. It is wrong to make wild allegations because it affects the confidence of sheep farmers and is misleading for this House.
They have no confidence in the Minister of the Department. They have been let down. The chairman of the IFA, Mr. Michael Holmes, is jumping into the political ring.
I do not think he was nominated.
Deputy Ring, allow the Minister to continue. Minister, please direct your remarks through the Chair.
It is in the interests of overgrazed commonages that there is a destocking rate, and that is in the current interim plan. All the others will be agreed individually and planners have been trained specifically to do that. The Deputy will realise that it is difficult to deal with commonages because unless everyone complies it is hard to get agreement. There are already disputes about who has the right to use a commonage. This is a wide area. The 30 per cent plan is an interim plan and it will be respected because overgrazing is a serious matter which is good for neither farmers nor the product they are trying to produce to a high standard.
There will not be a ram in sight.
The Minister speaks about the framework plan being agreed individually, but the only people with almost no input into the plan are the farmers. The plans are being agreed between the Department and the environmentalists. The Minister may not have the information on file in response to my next question, but perhaps he could get it for me. It is a technical matter. If my informants are correct, the vegetation study was not done scientifically and there is a question mark over whether the hills are overgrazed. It may not stand up to scrutiny in law.
To reply to the last question first, the officials of the Department of Agriculture and Food are conscious of the land users and the product they are producing from the land. The other Department would have a slightly different emphasis.
I agree with the Minister there.
I am glad Deputy Connaughton appreciates that because most of my Depart ment's officials are conscientious and supportive of farmers.
I accept that.
I will investigate the matter of the vegetation survey to which the Deputy referred and communicate with him at a later date.