Mr. Bill Callanan:

I was there on 13 June as well. It is fair to say the Commission has identified that everybody has signed up to the objectives of the water framework directive. In that context, the nitrates regulation is simply a subset regulation in terms of its overall contribution. It is the agricultural contribution to that. It is fair to say that the Commission is recognising that across Europe there has been no progress of any substance on water quality overall, but it still identifies that Ireland can do more and should be doing more to achieve good status.

The ask from our Minister was to explore that question of flexibility. I concur with Mr. Massey, however, that the attitude on the other side of the table is that while we have seen an overall decline in nitrate levels, what is Ireland's solution in terms of how we are to move the dial in relation to it. It is not easy, as I keep reminding people. I have worked on the environment for a long time. Effort and impact are two separate things when it comes to the environment. I do not believe anybody can give a guarantee that if someone does X, it will result in a reduction of Y in load. We can certainly model and identify priority areas. We identified that we would reduce nitrogen allowances in line with what has been agreed through the dairy group and beef and sheep groups. A 30% reduction by 2030 has been agreed in principle. We introduced a 10% reduction in the review the last time. We saw a significant reduction in overall fertiliser usage last year but the nitrate level in water did not go down. This is where the complexity is evident. There were weather issues that undoubtedly contributed to that overall. In general, the attitude of the Commission is that it wants to see progress.

As Mr. Massey said, the challenge of granting a derogation in that context is infinitely harder. The message at this point of the conversation is that we are open in terms of how to make progress. That is the objective of the Minister's group and we will work with farmers to achieve it. As chair, I have said it is up to the group to establish how best to deliver this. My own thinking is to identify how we connect farmers to the quality of water locally in order that they understand that the way in which they farm has local impacts and connect with the issue of water quality. A second issue is to improve the compliance element so that it is not driven by whether the Department inspects someone's farm but, rather, that farmers understand the reason we are carrying out additional measures. We also have to look at what additional actions farmers can and should take to deliver improved water quality.