Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman very much for the opportunity to question the witnesses. The issue on which I will focus is that of good agricultural and environmental conditions with specific regard to the high-carbon soils that make up a large part of my part of the country: peatland soils. In its submission to the committee, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine tells us that there is absolutely nothing to worry about here and that an effective derogation is available at the national level. In the past, we have seen what happened with derogations in respect of veterinary medicines. We also see it with regard to the nitrates directive at the moment. The derogation from this directive is vital to the operation of agricultural practice across the country. It is important to remind members that our part of the country was designated as a nitrate vulnerable zone to facilitate agricultural production in the southern half of the country, where we did not have issues with regard to nitrates. We now have to farm by calendar to facilitate agricultural production in other parts of the country. That must be remembered as we discuss all of this. The levels of intensity in some parts of the country are a direct result of farmers facilitating the designation of the whole country as a nitrate vulnerable zone, which I believe was wrong. However, because of this, we now have to farm by calendar.

The key issue in respect of all of these derogations is that the derogation has to be invoked by the Minister of the day. That Minister decides whether he or she wants to utilise that derogation. Depending on the political make-up of a particular Government, the Minister may decide not to invoke that derogation. I have had personal experience in the past of the Commission putting pressure on me, as a Minister, not to invoke particular provisions to facilitate another agenda. We cannot allow peatland soils to be singled out, whether today or in the future. There needs to be a commitment from all farm organisations that they will not allow peatland soils to be singled out either through the facilitation of a derogation, through a new Irish land use policy being developed down the road or through future interpretations of good agricultural and environmental conditions that would result in these peatland soils being restricted in agricultural practice.

We need to address this issue now because, as was stated, it may not happen in the current round of CAP, but we will be impacted by this in the future. It will have a significant impact across large swathes of the country if this principle is broken in differentiating between peatland and non-peatland soil.