"Green" policies are destroying this country

I'm delighted to hear we have no chance of meeting our 2030 emissions reduction targets. The less money we waste on this fiasco until European public sentiment changes (as it inevitably will), the better. Needless to say, those with their faces in the trough are looking for budget spending on infrastructure that benefits them. From the Biz Post:

How about getting wind energy prices down so they can compete without a deluge of public money? Concentrate on that instead of rushing out press releases every time we get a few gusts of wind, or natural gas prices briefly spike higher than wind. Speaking of which ... natural gas prices are staying firmly low at pre-2021 prices. Last month we were seeing the same prices as five years ago...

Not hard to guess why either. European storage is 90% full and it's barely the end of summer. Not only are they two months ahead of schedule but there are plans afoot to start filling up Ukraine's huge storage capacity. Most of that is nearer their safer western border, much of it is underground, and obviously they won't be needing it for transiting Russian gas anymore. It could help buffer European supplies considerably.

Kind of tragic that a war-ravaged country in central Europe is doing more for European energy security than our own storage-bereft island, thanks to Sleepy Ryan.

I get ya. Simples. When the construction industry went to **** sure didn't all the workers go selling clothes and working in Delis. Forgot that. Now you want someone to sell their land. Any ideas to who? If farming is non viable anymore because you've cut the supports and the markets aren't paying anymore - who pays for the land? And if many more do it then where do those 220k working go now that the inputs from farmers (meat/dairy) is reducing. (just on that, last week we seen the milk processors out looking for a handout from government if the government follow through on the proposed herd reduction as the processors will lose millions of litres of their cheap input. There wasn't any proposal from them saying that now they have a bigger demand that they'd pay more for the product!)

Look, at this stage we've established that you don't know how agriculture works and while I'm willing to help educate you, I'd suggest you go to the "Farming and Forestry" section and see what's happening on the ground.

Why would a farm fail?

Factories aren't the same as farms. Comparing is pointless.

You're argument is not making sense. You don't want to support farms yet you don't mind supporting farms who don't fail!

Have you seen any New Zealand farm? They are an environmental basket case. Between out wintering, no effluent storage, no slurry storage, no sheds and bobby calves among other things, they are far from what we should be aspiring to. What they can get away with there is a million miles away from what happens in the EU.

I can't say I'm passionate but I know what I'm talking about most of the time and I'll hold my hands up when I'm wrong. So far though, apart from water quality which I acknowledged, I'm on the money here.

You were the one that asked if you had 50 acres just scraping by what could U you do I answered that you were the one that said it wasn't working and I said do what everyone else does what makes you special a question I asked now numerous times but no answer

Yo do exactly the same as a factory worker or anyone else who doesn't feel the taxpayer owes him a living such arrogance to say I inherited 50 Acres worked hard so what am I to do

Welcome to the real world you know nothing about

You also said the ploughing would have rich and poor just showed how our of touch you really are in you subsidy supported bubble if you think the poor are at the ploughing

Poor is having to decide to have cheap mince burgers or put on the heat poor is having to move lightbulbs from one room to another poor is watching your kids going to bed hungry believe me there are lots of families like this right now in Ireland but none of them farm families

Farmers love to argue they are providing food the backbone of rural Ireland blah blah truth is even though you can't see it there are way too many of them in Ireland they are destroying the environment and they haven't a clue what is like to live in the real world

And New Zealand is not as you say

As regards Bobby calves etc as you said just look at the recent rte investigates re calves in Ireland disgraceful stuff

Pleas read that article it might educate a little also shows USA most heavily subsidised Agri sector is also the most inefficient

Remove subsidies and see what the public thinks about farming.

Farmers should be paid a fair price for their product and be allowed use their land as they think best. The lack of transparency only works in favour of the big processors like Kerry and Glanbia.

No the point was USA is one of the most heavily subsidised Agri industries and look at the state of them

New Zealand has no subsidies and one of the most efficient Agri sectors

I'm well aware they have totally different farming models

Did you even read the article I linked

So excise duty increases of 7c/ltr on petrol and 5c/ltr on diesel next week - just in time for back to school. Designed you could say to stick it to rural Ireland where state policy for decades has been to contract services and oblige citizens to drive.

Then more carbon taxes coming up on motor fuel & heating products.

Going to be very popular.....

You've really got a complex if you think this is designed to "stick it to rural Ireland" as you say

Why would anyone read your BS link when you don't read posts by people who actually know what they're talking about and just post any old random claptrap in response?

You've linked to a poorly written opinion piece in some undergraduate NY university magazine and want it to be held as a bastion of proof? Not a shred of evidence in the entire article - which I guess matches your modus operandi. It was likely written by a kiwi and might even be your own for all the obvious bias. Did you write it while flunking your Economics 101 course?

New Zealand my arse in terms of quality agriculture and a model that the farmers journal and teagasc have promoted here for yrs.New Zealand this,New Zealand that.

about 15 odd yrs ago there was a new Zealand journalist who wrote for the journal.she went back down under and ear to the ground done a piece about a couple of years later.it was an eye opener indeed and far from the rosy picture we were lead to believe.

You do realize that Lough Neagh is in a different country. But judging from some of your nonsense posts here you probably don't.

I’m a farmer and want proper prices for my milk.not subsidies that were calculated 23 yrs ago and not worth a dam now in real terms.if I could I would get more milking the social welfare system than what I get in the infamous cheque in the post.but hey according to u all farmers are bastards

How can you say that with certainty since you were whinging that you can't see any accounts from private farming enterprises?

Agriculture has existed since 100,000 BC and without it, all the folk being stacked high in the Green cities will go hungry and won't have access to biofuels. I don't see how agriculture is the cause of a human made problem in the last 100 years or so since heavy industrialization, commercialization and urbanisation.

You still haven't managed to answer any simple question posed to you nor have you managed to post any evidence of anything. Regurgitating student magazines and random reports from far flung locations doesn't refute the fact that Irish Agricultural produce is near optimal in terms of environmental impact vs quantity, quality, price and availability. Shipping hormone injected crap from South America et al or intensive farming mediocre products from New Zealand etc isn't without environmental impact either, and that's on top of all the removal of forestry to expand their available land and the actual emissions from their farming methods.

British Columbia one of the most heavily forested regions in North America but guess what domestic woodburner stoves are banned in the lower mainland that's the equivalent of banning turf in Ireland but at least the Canadians are aware there are issues with burning carbon fuels imagine trying to get turf stoves banned here