I thank the officials for attending today to address the issue and giving us an opportunity to ask a few questions. Reading what has been said, the first obvious point is as follows. The mountain was burned in April last year. By mid-summer it would have well grown back. In fact, within three or four weeks, it would have been getting quite green. In some cases, it will have grown back a great deal greener than it was before. The Department would pay on turlough land even if one got a very wet year with a lot of flooding when it might be very late in the year before the turlough dried out completely. My understanding is that the Department pays on those turloughs even in a wet year. I take it the reason for the disqualification has nothing to do with the fact that the land was burned. Perhaps the witnesses could clarify that. My understanding is that the disqualification was due to the fact that it was burned illegally. There is a difference. If it were a simple matter that it was burned and was not green for a very short time in the year, it would still be likely to be green in that year for as long as, oftentimes, many turloughs are.
That brings me to the second issue, which is that people were penalised because someone carried out an illegal act. If someone broke into one's house and did damage, one would not expect the State to double the damage by penalising one for something over which one had no control. In most of these cases, there is no evidence whatsoever that any of the farmers had any connection with the burning. In fact, as the officials opposite know, most of them were able to produce significant evidence from the only people who can decide whether to take a prosecution. All the evidence was that these people were not suspected of having had any hand, act or part in any illegality. What we have been doing, therefore, is penalising people for something they can prove they had nothing to do with.
I move to the next issue. On a lot of these commonages, one might have 300 ha with 250 legal owners. Of those, only 50 or 60 may have stock on the hill. The reality, however, is that their legal share in the commonage is very small. Therefore, the payments to a lot of these people are very small and they do not have huge resources to pay planners for appeals. Many of these farmers are in the older age bracket, but they have a legal right to continue to farm. The level of stress involved in getting affidavits from solicitors and obtaining independent evidence from law enforcement agencies to show they are not suspected of wrongdoing can be enormous and totally disproportionate to any alleged issue. The witnesses are saying that even if someone proves he or she had no connection with the fire, they will still penalise that person. The penalty is imposed not because the land could not be grazed but because someone did something illegal on it.
I was very surprised at the Department. It presumed everyone was guilty. In the case of anyone whose land was burned and who claimed for it, the Department not only imposed a deduction of the amount of land that was burned, it also imposed a penalty of 1.5 times the land involved. That is what happened last autumn according to what is before us here. Is that 1.5 times penalty irrespective of the percentage of the land one holds? In other words, if the land is more than 20% of one's total landholding, does the administrative penalty increase or is one disqualified from the scheme on the basis that one had an over-claim of over 20%? The Department might say that if 20% of a farm burned, it would be a hell of a lot of land but that is not so. If I have 100 ha of land, 20% of that is 20 ha and that is a lot of land to have burned as an individual. However, if I have 5 ha of land, as with some of the cases which were sent to the Department, and 1 ha of my share is burned, I have a 20% over-declaration.
I note to the Chairman that, coming from Kildare, one might laugh at 5 ha farmers. However, there are a lot of much smaller farmers in Poland. There are huge numbers of very small farms, as well as some enormous farms in Poland. As such, we are not an outlier in having very small farms. In reality, most people who farm in Kildare were born there. Most people who farm in Connemara were born there. They did not choose to be born there. It was an accident of birth. They will have other ways to make a bit of their living which would be strange in Kildare, namely, some seaweed harvesting and fishing. They make out fairly well in their own way by adding up all the bits of income along with a job. Each part of that income adds to the total household income. If that farmer only had the job, he or she might be on the subsistence side but a bit of farming, seaweed harvesting and fishing added in changes things. The other big industry in our neck of the woods is teaching Irish to those who do not have it. When one adds it all up and looks at the houses people have, one realises that these are the most creative people on earth. Given the hand they were given to play in terms of land, they have made the best of things. We should also recognise, however, that this €2,000 or €3,000 is the icing on the cake that makes the difference between pure subsistence and some comfort.
To summarise, is the reason for the deduction because it was an illegal act or because the land was burned and the forage was unavailable? How does the Department answer the turlough analogy in circumstances where the effects of the burning lasted only a short time? Why did the Department penalise people first when it was obvious that none of these people had been questioned or summonsed for an illegal act and the presumption of innocence therefore applied to them? Did the administrative fine increase where the over-declaration was above 20%? Did it increase even further if it was over 50%, which could happen in respect of a very small hectarage of hillside and did in a lot of these cases?
We want to exploit all of our resources in the west of Ireland. What we might lack in agricultural land, we certainly have in recreation land.
Farmers allow it to be accessed for free. There are very few things in this world free anymore. If I went to Leitir Móir, Máimín, Leitir Mealláin, Creag O'Duibh and Glean Eidhneach and headed up the mountain, most people would welcome me with open arms because it is an important source of wealth generation in the area, even though individual farmers do not gain from it. The likelihood is that it was not farmers who started the fires. I do not know who did, but it could have been young people or they could have started spontaneously or lit by strangers. The obvious danger that would stop a really super and growing industry - the recreation industry into which we have all put so much time - is that farmers would react by saying they would not risk their payments, as someone could go up the hill and might be careless in using a match or having a picnic and leaving a bottle behind which would be enough to light up the hill. We have to look at the big picture and say if that were to happen, the very successful work which has been ongoing since 2003 to rebuild the hill walking industry would be set at naught again. I hope the Department will reverse its view on this issue and tell the European Union that it has to cop on and provide for a reasonable application of the rules. We have an Irish Commissioner for agriculture who understands conditions in this country and I am sure it is not beyond him to ensure the rules will be applied in a realistic way, not in a way that has a lot of negative effects on communities, the economy and individuals.