Farmers wary of government “Double Talk” about compensation under Nature Restoration Law
Clare Independent TD Michael McNamara has warned Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue that the treatment of farmers in the Burren Life Scheme and Hen Harrier Project is undermining confidence in the Nature Restoration Law proposals.
The proposal aims to restore restoring 20% of EU land and sea by 2030, and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. However, Deputy McNamara says the State’s ongoing failure to provide promised compensation to farmers in the Burren and Hen Harrier Areas means farmers “will not accept or believe this scheme will be anything other than punitive to farmers and that they will bear the brunt of it, instead of society as a whole paying for it.”
Speaking during a Dáil debate on the proposed law this week, Deputy McNamara asked the Minister, “Who will pay for this, because the fact is that farms across Slieve Aughty and in County Limerick …. were designated and the farmers were promised compensation. They got compensation in the Burren, Slieve Aughty and across areas that were zoned or designated as a hen harrier project, but the compensation stopped.”
“I have been told that senior officials are looking at the matter,” he added. “The scheme ran out last November and there are no concrete proposals to compensate farmers.”
Deputy McNamara said farmers received payments under the BurrenLIFE scheme and the Hen Harrier Project and they receive considerably lower payments now under ACRES.
He also pointed out that farmers in the Hen Harrier Project faced long delays in getting paid for measures carried out in 2022, even still waiting several months into 2023.
“I asked the Minister’s Department and was told it was nothing to do with the Department and the scheme was being implemented by somebody else, but the farmers are waiting,” he explained.
Deputy McNamara continued, “They have not even received the money they were promised and now they are promised nothing. Unless and until the farmers receive their monies, they will not accept or believe this scheme will be anything other than punitive to farmers and that they will bear the brunt of it, instead of society as a whole paying for it. That is what they are promised, but farmers know otherwise, because they have experienced it.”
“They have been sold down the Swanee by the Government. I ask the Minister to address the issue. If the Minister wants farmers to go along with him and have any shred of confidence in what he and what the European Commission says to them, the Government must adhere to what he said he would do, compensate farmers for being designated and stop the double talk,” concluded Deputy McNamara.