Matt Shanahan urges housing and farming action amid Ukraine crisis

Tanaiste, firstly I would like to express my support for government's stance and for Ireland's stance in terms of the Ukraine crisis and I applaud what we have doing, the waiving of visa restrictions and also allowing Ukrainian people to come in here and avail hopefully of employment at the earliest opportunity. Could I raise one issue with you please Tanaiste which was raised with me is in relation to some vacant property that might be available particularly holiday homes that people might be of a mind to make available to Ukrainian people and they're wondering is it possible for them to do this without creating tenancy rights or having short-term lettings and maybe this is something that government may have a look at because I think we have a difficulty in terms of how we are going to accommodate a significant number of Ukrainian refugees. Could I go on please Tanaiste to talk just about the agricultural and food industry if you please an indigenous champion of this economy for many years and it is the bulwark of our rural economy and the basis for regional regeneration and I have concerns now building and I'm reflecting concerns I'm hearing that our climate policy now appears to be modelled in terms of where we are going with agriculture and I think it wouldn't be a far stretch to say that potentially there's some confrontation building in public opinion between the agricultural sector and the needs of climate change and as we're well aware at the moment we have a commodities crisis not least that Russia and Ukraine between them produce almost 30% of the world's wheat, 8% of the world's grain, 60% of the world's sunflower oil and all of this is going to feed into primary producer prices here and it's going to feed into the retail supply prices also. A significant one as you know is the issue of fertiliser and Russia is by far in a way the largest manufacturer of fertiliser and now with sanctions this is driving up a price that's already up 300% year to date this is going to have an effect on productivity is going to have an effect on output and it's certainly going to have an effect on pricing and the farming sector has been raising this issue for some time with with with I suppose with little regard I think been taken at the moment also the energy increases that government are have committed to for may the increase to fossil fuel prices at tarnished again is going to put extreme pressure on the sector and also I like to highlight the issues of forestry and despite the work the government has done we are still way behind in processing licences and almost 70% of licences that are being processed are being done for Quiltia in other words for the state sector at the expense of looking after rural and regional farmers who have invested in forestry and one other issue if I could bring up with you tarnished is the issue of wind energy and we know that we will not have a regulatory maritime institution developed for two more years but there is a process ongoing at the moment off the southeast coast in terms of onshore wind which is close into shore within five kilometres and there appears to be no regard to look at the development of offshore potential as has been done in Scotland for this project and I as a southeast deputy tarnished will tell you I will be at the vanguard of objecting to onshore wind in the UNESCO site of County Waterford we need to look at offshore wind in that facility thanks thanks thanks very much deputy I had the opportunity yesterday to meet with the six main farm organizations and government buildings and we organized the meeting as a regular roundtable to talk about Brexit to talk about cap reform to talk about climate action but as you can imagine as is often the case events overtake you and most of the meeting was about Ukraine the cost of inputs the rising cost of fuel and fertilizer and how that will impact on food prices and also impact on farm on farm incomes and government this afternoon is going to be a special meeting of ministers this afternoon chaired by the Taoiseach start at two o'clock in fact and there are really three items that we are going to consider one is the humanitarian response how can we assist Ukrainians who come to Ireland and more importantly how can we assist the millions of Ukrainians who won't come to Ireland but will be refugees in other parts of Europe and the second is sanctions and the political response is there more that we can do to show our support for Ukraine and our opposition to the Russian Federation and Belarus and third how are we going to deal with the economic impact another economic shock so soon after the last one and how are we going to help households and how are we going to help households with rising bills how can we help farmers with rising input costs how can we can help the business sector as well and there's only so much government can do but there are things government can do and we're going to consider them this afternoon and I look forward to reporting back to the Dáil on that next week if I have the opportunity just finally in terms of forestry licensing I got a really good note from Mr Hackett there just the other day after years and years of frustration and I know the frustration is by no means gone but a real evidence of a real evidence of an uptick in the number of licences being granted and I might send that note on to you because for the first time in a very long time I had to hope that we were making some progress so it was for both actually and one of the problems it seems with the planting is while licences are issued certainly not all are being used Thank you very much I'd like to reflect what you're saying but as I said the majority of licences they are for felling firstly and secondly they are being prioritised for Quiltia and not for the small farmers who are trying to get a forestation licences get roads built and get their own felling done could I just come back to the climate policy for a minute if you please and I'm certainly not against it but I just think we do need a reappraisal of it I note that government have made any as far as I'm aware and yet they haven't revised the policy about increases to fossil fuel prices in May I think that would be a very retrograde step in terms of inflation and could I also just highlight again you know Mara will not be developed I think for two years or longer we still haven't discussed where we're going with wind port in this country I think we have to start designating wind ports Ross Lair is the obvious one there are obvious benefits to housing in Dublin by diminishing some of the capacity in Dublin port I think this needs to be seriously looked at and also again Tornish I know you're aware and I think Minister Ryan is taking a call in the morning on the N24 but we need both the N24 and the N25 road upgrades to the southeast of Ireland to improve our connectivity and to give us some regional competitiveness the two roads that have not been invested in over 20 years Tornish I'll ask you to look at those please thanks thanks very much deputy I just an aside in relation to pharmacy or forestry rather that there's a there's a a new program a new scheme that and Mr Hackett has published and is working at the moment to allow farmers to plant small plantations of trees very small but still significant if everyone does it and what we'd like to see is farmers using a small part of their land for small plantations ideally with native broadleaf trees and she's bringing that in and allowing them to avoid the existing licensing system for doing that I think Mara is going to be up and running much sooner than two years time hopefully we'll have it up and running in interim form in its new headquarters in Wexford this year and up and running for real if you'd like next year and I agree with you on Ross Lair that's definitely a port that we need to invest in when it comes to wind energy because we're going to a lot of offshore wind off the east coast as well as the west coast but initially off the east coast and we want to make sure that the turbines come from Irish ports and not from English ports not with anything against English or Welsh ports but we'd like to use our own ports and investment in Ross Lair is going to be crucial in that regard