Mr. Bill Callanan:

I will start before handing over to my colleague.

We have been focused on the catchment-specific approach for some time. The Deputy's first comment was that derogation is a blunt instrument. There is no doubt about that. We have the debate about whether to set a figure of 170 kg of nitrogen per hectare, 180 kg of nitrogen per hectare or whatever. We set up the agricultural catchments programme and there are multiple influencers of water quality, including the load, the pathway and how it transfers into water.

Ireland has to be recognised as having been very ambitious in its nitrates action programme because we included a whole-territory approach and nitrogen and phosphorus as subject to the nitrates rules. That approach was not universal. In my early days in this role, only four countries had phosphorus as part of their nitrates action programme. Many other countries split their programmes into nitrate vulnerable zones and non-nitrate vulnerable zones. We avoided that, meaning the actions were for all farmers.

The Department provides support for farmers such as support for less equipment for slurry storage and we enable farmers through that. Similarly, we have the agri-environment scheme, which has been informed by water quality maps for many years. In this iteration and the previous iteration of our agri-environment schemes, the EPA maps were used as the priority selection tools to ensure that farmers within an area identified as having a water quality issue are required to take water quality actions as part of their plans. We worked carefully and closely with the EPA on that.

Similarly we worked through the agricultural sustainability support and advisory programme, ASSAP, where we put ten advisers on the ground to advise and support farmers. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has matched that by providing ten advisers as well. Industry also matched it by providing eight advisers at the time and is now providing at least 42 advisers collectively. They are working in priority areas based on the Environmental Protection Agency's, EPA's, identification of potential areas for change. There has been a lot of focus at Government level, as regards the integration between the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and between the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the EPA, to bring that kind of catchment knowledge and awareness of the right action for the right place. The maps released by the EPA last week identified that nitrates is the issue in certain areas and it is phosphorous in other areas. If the soil is heavy, it is phosphorous over land; for other areas, it is nitrates. That is well understood and as a consequence, it is about the right action in the right place. There will be further progress on that.