Philip Boucher Hayes

Michael Miley there, just outside Monastrevan.

And all of that is happening on just one farm in one county.

Here, though, is what we need to find room for nationally.

New land that's going to be needed by 2030.

120,000 hectares for wind turbines.

130,000 hectares of grassland for anaerobic digesters.

11,000 hectares for solar panels, 65,000 hectares of re-wetted bogs, 70,000 hectares of new land under tillage.

That's just by 2030.

In the longer term, a half a million hectares of new forestry is going to be needed to achieve a government target of 18% forestation.

All that new land is the equivalent of Carlow, Louth and Kildare in their entireties.

So, where is it going to come from?

There is a body of work that has been done here to try and square all of these circles.

It's called the Land Use Review.

It was completed in early 2025, but it hasn't been seen since then.

Pat O'Toole is political editor of the Irish Farmers Journal.

So what you're saying, Mary, is that you don't need 5% of the land in every river catchment on a permanent basis, only to use it temporarily at moments of intense rainfall?

He's been asking for a very long time when we might see this report.

Pat, good morning.

Why is it needed?

And Mary, if we don't do this, if we don't integrate this into a national land use plan, what happens?