VERBAL assurances to farmers on the ‘voluntary nature’ of rewetting measures on peaty soils are ‘simply not good enough’ and must be backed up by legislation written into the Statute Books, according to Galway IFA Chair, Stephen Canavan.

He said that the level of farmer anger and frustration at both the rewetting strategy and the delay in ACRES payments, was reflected in the huge crowd that turned out last Thursday night at a public meeting organised by the IFA in the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone.

“While we were given assurances at last week’s meeting from Department of Agriculture officials and Teagasc on the voluntary nature of any measures to be undertaken on rewetting, those commitments need to be nailed down in legislation,” said Stephen Canavan.

He added that farmers also had serious concerns on the impact that rewetting measures undertaken on a neighbouring farm could have on those who were farming nearby.

“We also have to ask: how will this affect the value of land across the West of Ireland and the Midlands over the coming years.

“We as farmers just can’t allow ourselves to be walking into a situation which could seriously impact on our current and future enterprises,” said Stephen Canavan.

He also said that the Department ‘weren’t even coming close’ to clearing the backlog of payments in the ACRES environmental scheme, many of them dating back to 2023.

“Would Dept. of Agriculture officials wait two years to get their salaries – I think not. Farmers have done everything to comply with the terms of the scheme and yet all we hear is about IT [information technology] problems holding up the payments,” he added.

Karina Finn, Galway IFA Environment Representative, said that 2,700 farmers were waiting for balancing payments in ACRES since 2023.

“We are constantly being given revised dates for these payments to be brought up-to-date and now we are told that the backlog will be cleared by May or June. We are constantly told that the hold-ups in payments are being caused by IT issues but that simply is not good enough,” said Karina Finn.

She also added that as regards GAEC [Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition] 2, the Dept. of Agriculture needed to do a lot more than just giving word-of-mouth assurances of the voluntary nature of any measures coming down the track.

Last Thursday night’s meeting in Athlone was chaired by IFA Deputy President, Alice Doyle, with four main speakers addressing the estimated 300 to 400 farmers in attendance – Dr. Pat Tuohy, Senior Research Officer, Teagasc; Paul Savage, Assistant Secretary General, Dept. of Ag.; Michael Moloney, Senior Inspector, Dept. of Ag; and Tadhg Buckley, Director of Policy, IFA.

Alice Doyle called on the Department to keep farmers fully informed on what was going on and she accused the new Government and new EU Commission of being ‘hell bent on implementing the old measures’ despite promises of simplification and reduced bureaucracy.

“These measures threaten to wipe out commercial farming and devalue land at the stroke of a pen,” warned Alice Doyle.

Pictured: Galway IFA Chair, Stephen Canavan