Tipperary TD opposes any mandatory attempt by European Parliament to rewet bogs

Tipperary TD Jackie Cahill has expressed his "outright opposition" to the mandatory rewetting targets being proposed by the EU Parliament.

The chairperson of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine also welcomed comments by Fianna Fáil MEP for Ireland South Billy Kelleher stating that he was unable to support any law that included mandatory rewetting targets, as such proposals would seriously hamper economic development.

“The suggestion that mandatory restoration and rewetting of land would be accepted by people in rural Ireland is ludicrous. The proposal of a 30% restoration target is just not acceptable and will be vigorously resisted," he said.

The Fianna Fáil TD said that there was a significant amount of marginal land in Ireland that had been upgraded to arable productive pasture, involving huge investment and labour by the generations who carried out this work.

Farmers will not allow that land to be interfered with, he warned.

Deputy Cahill said that the rewetting of the country’s bogs can have a significant impact on farms in the locality of those bogs and the impact that this would have on the water table would be very difficult to measure and determine.

He highlighted the flaws of similar policy decisions in the past.

“We have seen how, with the stroke of a pen, decision makers in Brussels have decimated the capital value of land here. Farmers in areas where their land was designated had the value of their capital assets reduced drastically overnight with little or no compensation. This will not be tolerated again. Farmers do not want compensation, they want to farm their land and produce food," said the Thurles TD.

A farmer himself, Deputy Cahill said that land being actively farmed in this country cannot be interfered with as it would seriously threaten the viability of many family farms across the country and have a devastating impact on the rural economy.

“I am urging the Government to oppose these extreme measures coming from the European Parliament and I strongly support MEP Billy Kelleher’s stance that the European Commission must approach this matter from scratch and scrap the ill-informed, misunderstood approach to this matter and its potential impacts on our economy," he said.