Mr. James Walsh:

I have tried to contact a lot of people but I have not managed to talk to the EPA as much. I rang the EPA at one stage and was told to ring the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's pesticide control division. I do not know whether it was the EPA that sent me on the number. I was dealing with the EPA briefly on the phone and I think it was the agency that told me to get on to the Department. There was one instance where, similarly to what the Chairman was saying, a guy who did a one-day spraying course sprayed all around the water treatment centre where I was living. That is illegal according to Article 11 of the same statutory instrument. It depends on how many people live in the village but spraying is not allowed within anything from 50 m and 200 m of a water treatment plant. He sprayed right around it, including all the buildings, where the water goes into the river and everywhere. I complained to Irish Water and the council got back to me the next day. I do not know if I am allowed to mention any cases but it rang me up the next day. It inspected 14 water treatments centres in north Cork afterwards and the guy who did it got a warning. Even though he did a one-day spraying course, what he was doing was completely illegal. He had no knowledge of the legislation.