Mr. Bill Callanan:

The best example I can give is consideration of the Dutch situation. The process commenced at the same time. They have certainly not agreed. It is important that we are not compared to the Dutch, because the water quality issue is just phenomenally different. Considering our average nitrate levels, Dr. Archbold identified that we are in the top third in that respect. Regarding nitrates, we might have 1% or 2% at over 50 mg of our national monitoring level, whereas in the Dutch situation - and I know this because I did a presentation at the same time some years ago - it is certainly north of 50%. Therefore, the Netherlands has a fundamentally different challenge with the intensity in this regard. I describe the comparison by saying it is a country the size of Munster that has the same size of dairy herd, but with double the production. The Netherlands also has ten times the number of pigs and a huge horticultural sector. The total value of agricultural exports from that country was €60 billion annually versus our €13.5 billion. It is just a different scale of intensity, so therefore these are not comparable contexts.

This still goes back to the situation, however, that we negotiate with the European Commission concerning our next action programme. It must be satisfied before it will propose a vote to member states. It will not just do that automatically. In my experience, the process will be undergone and then the European Commission will say that it is happy with the programme being put in place by Ireland. This was conveyed at the beginning of the meeting in respect of there having been long and arduous discussions and, ultimately, the European Commission decided it was comfortable that Ireland had put a robust action programme on the table. Such an outcome then undoubtedly influences voting positions. As I said earlier, there must be a long-term commitment concerning a sustainable derogation and this is where we see it being important to ask the right things of farmers. Experience has told us that they are willing to do them based on securing long-term viability. Perhaps someone from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage might like to comment.