Talks between the three coalition party leaders have ended without an agreement on an emissions reduction targets for the agriculture sector.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan met for two hours, but were unable to break the deadlock.
Some coalition sources said the leaders may continue to discuss the issue by phone tonight, but it now appears unlikely an agreement will be reached ahead of tomorrow's Cabinet meeting.
While some sources remain hopeful a deal could be reached by the end of the week, others are not ruling out the possibility of the issue being pushed back to September.
The Government's Climate Action Plan has recommended a range of cuts of between 22% and 30% for the agriculture sector.
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A number of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs and Senators have argued the final figure should be at the lower end of the scale. The Green Party believes it should be close to 30%.
A decision on emission ceilings for six sectors was due to be announced by mid-July but that was delayed after final agreement could not be reached.
The Government had aimed for agreement by tomorrow's Cabinet meeting, which is due to be the last before the summer break.
But talks have come down to the wire after the Cabinet sub-committee on Climate Change failed to find agreement following a meeting lasting two hours yesterday, which was attended by the three leaders as well as Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue.
Speaking on RTÉ's Prime Time, Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen has said a reduction in agricultural emissions by 22% would be acceptable.
He said the best approach is one that everyone can buy into and where transition is fair and transparent, adding that this "can be done at 22%".
"We can only do this if everyone starts at same starting line," he added.
Sinn Féin non-committal on targets
Sinn Féin has once again refused to say what it believes the emissions reduction target for agriculture should be.
The party's Spokesperson on the Environment, Darren O'Rourke, said the party cannot specify a figure until the Government publishes a report on the issue by management consultants McKinsey and Company.
"Agriculture needs to do its fair share. What that means in terms of percentages, what that means in terms of the transformational change that is going to happen across every sector, we do not have the detail, line by line, percentage by percentage. And we are not going to pick a figure out of the air," he said.
"We will wait until we have that information until we conclude our own decision making process in relation to it," he added.
At a farm event, hosted by the Irish Farmers Journal near Tullamore in Co Offaly, farmers have expressed frustration and concern.
"Farmers have been thrown under the bus. There are other areas producing more emissions than ourselves," said Caoín McCabe, a farmer from Co Cavan.
"They talk about this 30%. I don't know if that’s justifiable. Maybe we could go to 10% or 12% or something like that," he added.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture emissions in Ireland increased by 3% in 2021, driven by increased fertiliser use (up 5.2%) and a 2.8% increase in the number of dairy cows.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that methane is responsible for almost half of the approximately 1.1 degrees of global warming.
Yesterday, the chairperson of the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee, Jackie Cahill, said that lowering carbon emissions by 22% "will be a difficult task" for farmers.
Farmers in Tullamore believe the targets set must be realistic.
"Farmers are more environmentally friendly than they are ever given credit for, and we will if we’re given realistic targets achieve them, that’s no problem," said Jonathan Bracken, a farmer from Portarlington, in Co Laois.
Mike Magan is a dairy farmer from Longford. He believes fairness and equity are key in these targets.
"We have a problem that if we store carbon it’s not credited to the farm and that’s unfair and inequitable," he said.
"For example, where the energy is produced in a fossil rich country like Saudi Arabia, it’s credited where it’s consumed. We want the same thing," he added.
"We want where food production is produced is credited where consumed and that’s a logical way to go," he said.
Additional reporting Sineád Hussey
