Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Mr. Callanan and Mr. Massey to this debate. There has been a robust debate nationally for the last week but a time has to come where one stops flogging the dead horse and we start looking at resolution and solution-driven debates.

As was mentioned, a delegation from this committee was in Brussels last week. It was evident for anyone who was there – all members were welcome to attend – that the Minister would be totally wasting his time going to Brussels. People demanding the Minister go to Brussels is pure semantics and tokenism. I am not saying that as a party colleague but rather as a member of the committee who met with the Commissioner. We knew what was coming down the line. Once the water results did not come to where we needed them to, it was a fait accompli. The Minister’s and the Commissioner’s hands are tied. The Commissioner is a lovely man who gave us a very good welcome. However, he cannot change anything without going back to square one and going to the European nitrates committee, which will not happen with 24 other states. That is being blunt and honest about it.

It would be remiss of me not to say the following, about which people will say sure, what else would I say as a party colleague. We would not be in this situation if the Minister had not hammered out the derogation we got at the start. It was an achievement to maintain the 250 kg nitrogen per hectare. If the water quality had improved, we would have 250 kg nitrogen per hectare going forward. The midterm review had to be built in or there would have been no derogation. Let us be honest about it; we have to call a spade a spade.

I wish to move on to where we are and the situation many people find themselves in. Senator Lombard covered the maps, which I was going to talk about. My colleagues have stated their interest, however, I have no interest in the dairy side, but I am a suckler farmer. This derogation reduction will affect me along with the tillage farmers, the processors and the employees of the processors. I am not trying to take anything from the likes of Senator Lombard or farmers who are affected by this. The impact this will have on the agriculture sector across the board is not being recognised. That is why it is so important that, first, we do everything within our power to make sure we hold on to the 220 kg nitrogen per hectare and, second, we try to mitigate as much as possible so the minimum effect possible comes to compound the situation for the other farmers down along the line, possibly through a rise in land prices. How will a suckler or tillage farmer, for example, compete with that? Some of our creameries and processors may not have the milk quantity they require going forward and may find themselves in difficulty. There is a major knock-on effect.

We need, and there is room for, some negotiation with the Minister and Brussels to try to mitigate the effect of this going forward. I have a couple of questions on that. People are talking about herd reduction. There are other mitigating factors that could be taken. For example, I mentioned acquisition of extra land, destocking – which is the one we want to try to avoid – and slurry export. I wish to touch on that again because the last time we had the officials in – the Minister was not here – I asked about the reduction of the nitrogen quantity that has been given to exported slurry. It was reduced from 5 kg/cu. m to 2.5 kg/cu. m. Mr. Callanan came back with an answer but I want to tease this out more because I am not happy with the explanation. I am fearful that we are not getting our calculations right. There quite possibly could be beneficial changes we could make if we get our sums right. I cannot get my head around the fact that while every cow was classed as 89 kg, we were allowing and saying there were 5 kg N/cu. m of slurry. Now we are saying there are only 2.4 kg N/cu. m of slurry and some cows are characterised up to 106 kg. It does not make sense to me and perhaps it is because I am not getting the explanation.

A big mitigating factor is the export of slurry. If one does a bit of research on this, Teagasc is advising that 0.33 cu. m of storage per week for a cow is needed. In other areas, one reads that a cow produces 20 l of slurry per day. For the purposes of conversation, if we take a zero graze cow whose slurry is being captured at all times, she is producing based on the 20 l per day 7.3 cu. m. If one goes by the Teagasc storage requirement, she is producing 17.16.

Either-or, using 2.5 kg in that cubic metre of slurry, she is only producing 18.25 kg on the 20 l per day example. On the 0.33 cu. m Teagasc number and the storage it states will be required for a cow per week, she is only producing 42.9 kg. How did we get to 106 kg, 92 kg or 80 kg? Are our sums right here? To go back to the start, were our sums right when we said a cow was 89 kg and there was 5 kg of nitrogen per cubic metre? I cannot get my head around it. It needs to be revisited. It could be a big help to many farmers who are exporting slurry if they got the correct quantity of nitrogen in that cubic metre of slurry as a mitigating factor against their stocking rate. I will give the Minister a chance to answer.