DEAR SIR: The planning scenario between An Taisce and the new cheese plant cannot be used by the powers that be to change planning rules that would see people who lose a challenge against a planning application be liable for costs up to €5,000 and €10,000 for a company.

While some farmers might want these changes now, they will not want them if they find themselves facing a planning application near their farms that they oppose. Farmers cannot be tunnel-visioned and allow planning laws to be tightened. The powers that be pick and choose what projects they support and what projects they stay quiet about.

With the costs of farm inputs, farm buildings and outside of farming house prices getting too high, hopefully the powers that be don’t forget about the Celtic Tiger era. All the farm organisations need to ask is, why are costs going so high? There has to be some type of limit for building costs for farms. If a person is planning to build something, external influences can spiral the costs and add years of repayments on to a build. In terms of farm inputs, there is a potential for straw prices to go out of control this year with the new straw chopping scheme. Hopefully straw prices do not go through the roof.

Livestock farmers still need straw despite the Government’s plan of scrapping what has been a centuries-old tradition of straw being used as bedding for animals.