There was already huge fear in rural Ireland about the full impact of the proposed nature restoration law, but Minister Eamon Ryan’s comments on compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) have caused huge anger, Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) president Tim Cullinan has said.

“Minister Ryan’s failure to rule out the use of compulsory purchase orders as a means of achieving the targets in the proposed EU law has confirmed farmers’ fears that the minister actually wants to confiscate their land under the cover of the proposed law,” he said.

Cullinan said that Minister Ryan was asked directly by the Today with Claire Byrne programme on RTÉ whether land would be subject to CPO and that he said he was neither in favour nor against CPOs.

Deep concerns

He argued that this type of comment was contributing to the "deep concerns" that farmers have about the nature restoration law.

“Minister Ryan has revealed his real intentions here. The plan is to get the law in place first and then use all the tools available to the State to enforce it, including CPOs.

“Minister Ryan cannot expect support for what is proposed when he won’t definitively rule out the use of CPOs for the nature restoration law. Farmers cannot take a leap of faith when something as fundamental as this is on the table,” he said.

The environment committee in the European Parliament will meet again on Tuesday next week to discuss the nature restoration law.