Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 June 2024
310. Deputy Martin Kenny asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will give an undertaking that the re-wetting of land under the nature restoration Bill will be on a voluntary basis for farmers and that it will not be made compulsory in the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26857/24]
View answerThe Government, and I through my position on the AgriFish Council, secured additional flexibilities in the legal text of the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) to both support farmers and to recognise our specific Irish circumstances. As a result of this intervention, the targets for restoration and rewetting of drained organic soils were reduced from the original proposal. This means the total area for restoration now targets 50% of such area by 2050, rather than 70% as originally proposed, with a third to be rewetted, rather than a half.
The legal obligation to achieve NRL targets is on the Member States not individual landowners. The existing national commitments to rewet 33,000 hectares of Bord na Móna lands are sufficient to deliver the NRL rewetting targets without recourse to privately owned land to 2050. This fact is a strong reassurance to farmers that there will be no obligatory requirement on farmers to rewet land due to the NRL. Any restoration measures that landowners choose to participate in will be voluntary and will be appropriately incentivised.
