I welcome the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, to the House.
Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters
Agriculture Supports
I thank the Cathaoirleach for accepting my Commencement matter. I welcome the Minister of State to the House. It is great to have a Minister of State from the Department of agriculture. I do not always get one when I am speaking about agricultural issues. Today I want to highlight the plight of north Louth farmers who have been severely impacted by the recent floods and the importance of providing financial assistance to these farmers. This cannot be overstated. It is crucial for their individual recovery and for the overall agricultural sector, the regional economy, the local economy and the importance that farming families play in the north Louth economy.
Recent floods have left a trail of destruction. If the Minister of State looks on TV or any of my social media posts she will see the devastation it has caused. Crops and fodder have been absolutely destroyed. Valuable infrastructure such as fields and fences have been damaged and completely changed. This catastrophe has left many farmers not knowing how to rebuild their lives or their businesses.
Why should we care about the recovery of north Louth farmers? As the Minister of State and the Department know, the answer is very simple. It is the responsibility of the Department to support our farming families. Agriculture forms the backbone of our economy, no more than in north Louth. Farms provide us with the food we eat. They contribute significantly to the local and national economy. By supporting north Louth farmers we are not only supporting them in securing the future of our food supply but we are safeguarding their livelihoods and their families.
Financial assistance is essential to farmers to repair and replace damaged equipment and infrastructure. It is also essential to support farmers as we move into the new season which, as the Minister of State knows, brings new challenges and responsibilities. Lambing is starting in north Louth. People are getting their fields ready for silage, tillage or whatever they will be doing from spring onwards. An awful lot of the land is damaged. An awful lot of the infrastructure is damaged. Rivers have been rerouted and there is no ability to spend the moneys needed to fix them. There is damage to our fish stocks.
Not one departmental official has got back to me. I feel very disappointed and let down by the Department. I want the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, to intervene in this and to support farmers, who are environmentally conscious. They are looking at fish leaving the rivers and going into fields and dying. This is only one issue.
The Department has made significant moves in getting people onto environmental schemes, with money expended. Fences that were partly paid for by grants from the Department have been broken down. What happens when land is disregarded and not farmed? I have received no answers from the Department about whether farmers will be able to get an allowance this year in the form of grants, GLAS or other financial assistance if they cannot afford to fix their fences. This is a cashflow problem. Businesses and homes were taken care of. If farm sheds had been burned down, FBD or whatever insurer a farmer used would have been able to cover it.
This is a natural disaster. I do not use that term lightly. It is devastating. There are fields with holes 10 ft deep, so it is not just a case of bringing out the front loader and filling in a few gaps. This is a case of using a Hymac and hiring people at approximately €500 per day for several days to restore land. What happens when the Department performs a flyover and sees that the land is not in use? The farmer will be penalised. Not once have I received an answer from the Department about this. I beg the Minister of State and the Minister to intervene and support the farmers in north Louth.
I thank Senator McGreehan for raising the issue of farms flooding in north Louth. I understand that the Minister has discussed it with her a number of times. We recognise that there has been some damage to agricultural property due to flooding last year and in previous years. In such circumstances, farmers should first liaise with their insurers. However, the Minister acknowledges the representations from Senator McGreehan regarding her request for consideration of a Government scheme and he continues to liaise with her on the matter. There are flood schemes that can be rolled out by the Departments of Social Protection and Enterprise, Trade and Employment where areas meet the threshold of severe flood damage, but there is no such scheme in place for agriculture. This is something that the Minister is reflecting on, given the challenges around adverse weather, future climate change and the potential need to have a scheme designed that can be utilised in such circumstances. However, such consideration does not impact on the primary responsibility of farmers and business people to take steps to ensure that their properties are insured for these potential scenarios. The Minister commits to continuing to liaise with the Senator on this issue.
Undoubtedly, 2023 was a difficult year for farmers across the country. We saw the wettest March and July on record. Sandwiched between those two months, many farmers experienced drought. Many areas saw floods during August, October, November and December. The Government is fully aware of the effects of these floods and of the subsequent devastation and stress caused to the farming community as well as to the broader community in impacted areas.
Climate change predictions show that we can expect more frequent and intense severe weather events. As a society, we need to plan for the future. In this regard, the Government is assessing the appropriate actions to take to mitigate future flooding events in various areas through climate adaptation. Climate adaptation is the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects. It is not a one-time emergency response, but a series of proactive measures that are taken over time to build resilience to the impacts of climate change, ultimately minimising the cost of climate change and maximising any opportunities that may arise.
As part of this climate adaptation process, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, last week launched a public consultation on the national adaptation framework. That consultation will remain open until 19 February to gather feedback from relevant stakeholders – this will include farmers – and the public on the draft framework. A revised draft will then be prepared and submitted to the Government for approval later this year. My Department will have to update the sectoral adaptation plans for agriculture, seafood and forestry. Importantly, the Office of Public Works will have to update the flood risk management sectoral adaptation plan. I encourage fellow Senators, the general public and, in particular, those who have been impacted by recent severe weather events to contribute to the current public consultation.
It has not been possible to compensate all of those impacted by last year’s weather. However, my Department has a number of schemes available that are assisting farmers to adapt to climate change. For example, under ACRES, which is our new national flagship agri-environmental scheme, there are a number of measures to slow the flow of water. These include tree planting on riparian margins, catch crops and overwinter stubble actions as well as the maintenance of riparian zones.
Under the scheme, hedgerow and tree planting in strategic locations can also act to slow overland flow. In addition, our woodlands and forests can act as natural means of flood attenuation and several forest measures and schemes now incorporate a focus on water-related issues, including woodlands for water and the agro-forestry scheme. Furthermore, my Department secured €9.53 million from the EU agriculture reserve, which is being distributed between the tillage sector - € 7.1 million - and the horticulture sector - €2.3 million.
The EU agriculture reserve allocation for tillage is being topped up by a further €7 million. The best support we can provide for those impacted by flooding is to work together to mitigate the risk by future-proofing possible flood events.
I mean no harm, but that is absolute baloney. I do not need the preaching of a fairy tale from Department of agriculture. These farmers are very well equipped and very well aware of the responsibilities to environmental mitigation. Yet, it is absolutely the Department's responsibility to mitigate against farmers going out of business. It is absolutely the Department’s responsibility to look after the farming communities and it is their remit. The strategic aims, which are on the Department's website, are to support farming families. What is that about? The Minister of State is telling me that the farmers can look at mitigating measures, and that is an absolute cart of bull. I am not taking it.
There is precedent for schemes, such as in Inishowen. That was good enough for Charlie back in 2017. Inishowen received funding for pretty much the exact same thing that has happened. Their fences were destroyed. Their fodder was destroyed, as was their fertiliser, and their fields were absolutely ruined. Do not tell me that there is no precedent for it. Some of that €9.3 million could go to it. The €300,000 in that figure would go a long way towards fixing a few farmers in north Louth. I think the Department of agriculture is in fairy tale land.
I call the Minister of State.
It is in absolute fairy tale land.
For one, Senator-----
I am furious.
Let the Minister of State respond.
I apologise.
I thank the Cathaoirleach. For one, it is unfair to say that my Department does not support farmers. That is what it does-----
Not in north Louth.
It does that largely through taxpayers’ money, so we have to make calls on what is appropriate to spend money on and what is not. I do not think it is sustainable - and I do not even think the Senator believes it is sustainable - for the Department or any other Department to pay out one-off measures in response to some-----
Shannon Callows.
-----sorry-----
Inishowen.
It is not sustainable. I am sorry, I cannot get a word in here.
Allow the Minister of State to continue without interruption.
It is not sustainable for any Department to continue to pay out funding on one-off measures. That is why the focus has to be on the future, on mitigation and on climate adaptation. That is why I urge the Senator, her colleagues and the farmers she represents to engage with that consultation and highlight what will stop them. We cannot keep going back out when something happens saying we need compensation. Compensation is not a sustainable model. We have to look at climate adaptation. The Department funds-----
You should have told that to businesses.
This is-----
You did not say that to the businesses-----
The Minister of State is replying, Senator McGreehan.
Businesses are the same, whether it is a farming business or another business. It is not sustainable to keep compensation measures going.
They are not the same.
National Library
I thank the Cathaoirleach for selecting this Commencement matter, which I also raised as a Commencement matter in 2021. I have heard of no progress to date, so I hope that today the Minister of State will have an update for me.
The National Library of Ireland is a depository where publications are sent to record the history of the State, but they do not have the same legal responsibility when it comes to digital content and websites. Today, I want to quote the former director of the National Library of Ireland, Sandra Collins, who was before the Oireachtas committee on culture back in 2021. The basis of my contribution today will be this quote. I am blue in the face from raising this issue, so I think her words will be more powerful as a former director of the National Library of Ireland. This quote is on the Oireachtas record, but I will again put it on the record of this House.
This is from Sandra Collins, who is a former director of the National Library of Ireland.
In 2019, we did a full domain .ie crawl. Approximately 230,000 Irish websites end with .ie. With our technology partner, we captured a snapshot in time of every one of those websites. It is a resource that researchers and historians in the future will take as a record of what the country was saying during 2019. The act of collecting those websites put us [the National Library of Ireland] in breach of copyright legislation. We have that resource securely locked away, but we cannot provide access to it for researchers, historians and people in Ireland who are interested in it.
Each year that we do not do that, 50% of Irish websites vanish forever or are changed so that they are unrecognisable from what they are now. The records of referendums and general elections are all gone. In 2022, it will have been three years since we collected .ie domain data. In consultation with our board, we will not be able to take the risk of collecting it because of the risk and responsibility that puts on the library in terms of having breached copyright legislation. It would be useful for the report to go to the Cabinet for consideration and that the report recommend a legislative amendment to copyright legislation, which is the responsibility of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. [Obviously, the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media has a particular responsibility here also]. That, in time, would allow us to capture those websites and our contemporary history before it is gone forever.
We are losing websites at an alarming rate. I had an amendment to the Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019 passed on one Stage, but it was taken out on a later Stage. As it stands, though, we are losing websites at an alarming rate. These represent our national memory, and the longer the Department fails to introduce an amendment to the 2019 Act, the more websites and the more of our memory we will lose for future generations. I hope the Minister of State has an update for me today in terms of a legislative amendment coming down the tracks.
I thank Senator Warfield for raising this Commencement matter. I am here on behalf of the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Martin. I will provide an overview on the establishment of a digital legal deposit for Irish web archiving and an associated timeline.
Legal deposit legislation is an important instrument in national cultural policy. It is relied upon in many countries to ensure the published output of a nation is collected and preserved by one or more prescribed institutions. This is intended to ensure, as the Senator outlined, that citizens and researchers, in the country and abroad, are guaranteed permanent access to the intellectual and cultural memory of the nation.
Today, a significant proportion of Irish publications are exclusively on the World Wide Web as digital content grows at an unprecedented rate. The nation's published and creative output is increasingly digital and online. Furthermore, web pages and digital publications are transient, often changing or moving. Without measures to collect and preserve online material, there is a risk that important documentary heritage will be lost and Government publications, online newspapers and websites documenting all aspects of life in the 21st century will be unavailable to future researchers. Without a comprehensive digital legal deposit framework, we risk compromising access to the total published output of the nation. This will, as the Senator outlined, impact the ability of the National Library of Ireland to continue to collect, preserve and make available this material for future generations.
To address this situation, many countries have amended their existing legal deposit legislation to incorporate the deposit of published digital output such as ebooks, web publications and other digital media. This is digital legal deposit and exists to some extent across the majority of EU member states. Section 29 of the Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019 introduced a provision for copyright libraries to request a publisher to deposit a copy of the digital publication first published in the State. This introduced digital legal deposit in Ireland. However, capturing the web, more specifically the .ie domain content, is a complex process that requires significant consideration. Section 108 of the 2019 Act provided that the Government would bring forward a report on the feasibility of establishing a digital legal deposit scheme to serve as a web archive for the .ie domain contents and advise on steps taken towards that goal.
Web archiving is the process of capturing portions of the web and preserving it in an archival format to ensure there is availability in future, with archived sites preserved long after the originals have disappeared. Since 2011, the National Library of Ireland has selectively archived the web, preserving online publications accessible via the Internet and which are substantially or primarily related to Ireland, its citizens and the Irish language, consistent with the National Library of Ireland's collecting mandate under the National Cultural Institutions Act 1997.
However, as it moves towards the creation of an archive of Irish websites, there are a number of practical and administrative limitations to the process, most significantly that it does not provide for a complete record of Irish content websites.
The National Library of Ireland has the statutory mandate under the national cultural institutions legislation to collect for the benefit of the public. It can also meet the resource requirements to gather and preserve the information. However, legislative amendments are required to provide the National Library of Ireland with the authority to conduct a full domain web crawl of the .ie domain and websites of Irish interest on a periodic basis. To capture a complete record of Irish websites, this domain crawl would include the collection of content behind paywalls. In common with its other resources, the National Library of Ireland intends to make the content available on its premises. Content that originated behind a paywall and is available on the National Library’s premises would be the subject to a timeframe along with a negotiation and agreement with relevant publishers.
I will leave it at that.
The Minister of State said that section 108 of the 2019 Act provided that the Government would bring forward a report on the feasibility of establishing a digital legal deposit scheme. Does she know if that report was brought forward and, if not, could she ask the Minister? Would she be able to find that out for me if I cannot find it out myself?
I note that section 29 of the copyright Act introduced a provision for copyright libraries to request a publisher to deposit a copy of a digital publication first published in the State. The Minister of State mentioned that it is capturing the domains of what we are talking about but that is not a digital deposit scheme. She also said we need a legislative amendment. I am prepared to table a legislative amendment if the Minister does not table one. Over many years, I have heard there are practical and administrative difficulties but we do not seem to have moved anywhere on this.
The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media has been working closely with the National Library on establishing the deposit scheme to serve as a web archive for the .ie domain. This process requires consultation with all the relevant stakeholders and consideration of aspects of intellectual property and data protection. A draft report on the feasibility of establishing a digital legal deposit scheme to serve as web archive for the .ie domain contents has been prepared and the proposed legislative amendments to provide a comprehensive digital legal deposit are now under consideration.
I understand it is hoped a report will be brought forward in the coming months. That is the detail I have but I will follow up on that with the Minister, Deputy Martin, on the Senator’s behalf.
Energy Conservation
The third Commencement matter is from Senator Sherlock. Before I call the Senator, I welcome students from Gorey Community School to the Seanad. Their tour is on a Monday and it is most unusual that we are sitting on a Monday, so at least they are getting to see the Seanad sitting during their visit. My colleague, Senator Malcolm Byrne, is a past pupil of Gorey Community School, so I am sure he would be delighted to hear these students are in the House.
I welcome the students of Gorey Community School as well, and I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House.
My question relates to apartments and the apparent lack of State support for the retrofitting of these homes. The Government has a plan to retrofit half a million houses by the end of this decade. We also have a national retrofit plan, which was published two years ago. However, when I looked through the detail of the national retrofit plan, I did not see a single sentence in the whole document that deals with retrofitting apartments. The fact that apartments have been forgotten about is astonishing because the census data shows there are almost 35,000 apartments and flats in this country that were built before 1990, which is more than 30 years ago. In an area close to where I am based in Smithfield, almost 40% of people live in apartments, yet there is no recognition of these communities and complexes within the national retrofitting plan.
That exclusion also is apparent when we look at the State supports provided by the SEAI. Obviously the SEAI funds individual homeowners and community projects. It seems that there are extraordinary challenges in funding owner management companies, OMCs, that manage apartment complexes. I have been told by a director of an OMC who wants to retrofit an entire apartment complex that 12 one-stop shop companies were contacted, but just one of them would provide a quote. This reflects the serious challenges one encounters when one wants to retrofit an apartment complex. The reason all of this is so important is that the many apartment dwellers who want to retrofit need to do so. This is about reducing bills, keeping more heat in and, crucially, reducing energy poverty. We know from ESRI research that has been published over recent years that those who live in apartments and flats tend to be, on average, on a lower income, their accommodation tends more to be rented than owner-occupied, and they are more likely to experience energy deprivation when compared with those who live in houses. There is a double-whammy whereby people who live in apartments and flats are more likely to be on a lower income, and more likely to rent. They find themselves locked in a situation where they cannot do anything to reduce their bills and cannot afford to move out due to the rental crisis in this country. If we are serious about tackling energy poverty, and the serious number of people who are in energy poverty, we must dramatically improve the lives of lower income people and take a very serious look at retrofitting apartment blocks.
I am very conscious of the serious technical challenges in retrofitting apartments, and I do not think anybody would deny that these challenges exist. There are issues with the type of work that is to be done, the scheduling of that work, the question of who is responsible for undertaking the work and the distribution of the benefit of the changes. In particular, I am thinking of where solar panels could be applied and who would benefit from those energy savings. I know that some apartment complexes that applied for energy master plans have not been fully funded by the SEAI because their OMCs are not tax registered. Again, that seems to be another blockage or obstacle to those living in apartment complexes trying to find a way to retrofit their developments.
In 2023, research on the retrofitting of apartment complexes was instigated and a report is due in the third quarter of 2024. I think that is a very slow turnaround time. It is very late in the day if we are serious about trying to retrofit dwellings and ensure we reduce energy poverty. The Government must make greater progress on a retrofitting plan for apartment blocks.
I thank the Senator. I am here to answer on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications.
The climate action plan, as outlined by the Senator, and the national retrofit plan set ambitious targets to retrofit the equivalent of 500,000 homes to a building energy rating of B2 or cost optimal and the installation of 400,000 heat pumps in existing homes to replace older, less efficient heating systems by the end of 2030. To promote and incentivise the achievement of these targets, the Government has put in place a package of supports to make it easier and more affordable for homeowners to undertake home energy upgrades for warmer, healthier and more comfortable homes with lower energy bills.
Last year, demand across the SEAI schemes was exceptionally high. Indicative figures from the SEAI show that nearly 48,000 home energy upgrades were supported last year. This represents a 76% increase in outputs year on year. Of this amount, 17,599 homes achieved a B2 building energy rating. This represents a 107% increase in B2 upgrades that were supported in 2022. Under the better energy warmer home scheme, 5,897 free upgrades for energy poor homes were delivered. This represents a 33% increase in free upgrades provided versus 2022. Overall, over 67,000 applications for grant supports were received by the SEAI, which equated to a 34% increase on 2022 levels. This indicates a strong pipeline of works for this year.
A record capital budget of €437.2 million for SEAI residential and community energy upgrade schemes, including the solar PV scheme, has been allocated for 2024. This allocation will mean that the progress made last year under the national retrofit plan will be further ramped up this year.
On the Senator's specific query, houses and apartments owned by homeowners, non-corporate landlords and approved housing bodies are eligible for grant support under the various residential and community energy upgrade schemes in line with the relevant scheme guidelines. The national home energy upgrade scheme is designed to support homeowners who want to undertake a comprehensive home energy upgrade through registered one-stop shops. While apartments in aggregated projects can be supported, this scheme is currently more focused on upgrading individual apartments and houses. However, entire apartment buildings can be supported under the SEAI community energy grant scheme. In recent years, the SEAI has supported a number of such projects, including in respect of energy-poor and non-energy-poor households in apartment buildings.
The Department and the SEAI recognise that apartment buildings have additional and complex issues that need to be addressed when considering whole-building retrofit upgrades. These include technical issues like heat pump systems, design solutions and mixed-ownership issues, which can often be very challenging. For that reason, the Department is working with the SEAI to identify and address any of the barriers that currently exist. In parallel, officials from the Department and their counterparts from the SEAI and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage are collaborating with the Housing Agency on an EU-supported research project on this matter. The key objective of the project is to establish models and frameworks to advance methods of whole-of-building retrofits of apartment buildings in Ireland. The project is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
It is important to note that the SEAI is happy to engage with apartment block owner management companies in respect of proposals for energy efficiency upgrade projects. I encourage any such companies to make contact with the SEAI.
I thank the Minister of State. My question specifically related to apartments. In 2020, 11.7% of all apartment dwellers reported being in energy arrears. In 2013, the figure was as high as 20%. The issue of energy poverty among apartment dwellers is not new, yet my sense is that the Department has been hugely behind the curve on this matter. The Minister of State spoke about the SEAI supporting a number of apartment blocks. To be honest, I know of none in Dublin. Perhaps they exist but they are few and far between. We need to see a comprehensive plan for all apartment blocks in order that they can be upgraded in one step as opposed to just the windows or doors of individual apartments being done, which has limited benefit when compared with the overhaul of the energy efficiency of an entire building.
The Department is moving at far too slow a pace in addressing this issue. We have the old data regarding energy arrears and energy deprivation among apartment dwellers. In the context of the cost-of-living crisis, the figure in this regard is quite high. There needs to be urgency on the part of the Department.
I thank the Senator. I listened with interest to both her concerns and the points she raised. There are challenges when it comes to apartment blocks and how the Department deals with them. It is eager to iron out some of these difficulties and to understand how best it can move matters forward. The project being supported at the EU level will in some ways help to iron out a number of those issues. It is essential that we bring everyone on the journey when it comes to retrofits, energy-use reduction and cheaper, warmer and healthier living. As a society, we cannot afford to leave people behind. The Government has rolled out supports in the context of energy poverty. This is a matter on which we keep a close eye at all times.
I thank Senator Sherlock and the Minister of State. We have a special Order of Business coming up at 1 p.m. We will suspend proceedings until then.
Cuireadh an Seanad ar fionraí ar 12.39 p.m. agus cuireadh tús leis arís ar 1 p.m.
Sitting suspended at 12.39 p.m. and resumed at 1 p.m.