Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Those are very much the arguments that I put to the Commissioner in my submission that I made to him in August, and also in a follow-up meeting at the start of September. Farm representatives and those on the water quality working group would have fed those arguments to me as part of the consultations that I did with them in advance of compiling the submission to the Commission.

There is a real challenge, which has led to the fact that we are facing a derogation of 220 kg N/ha. Water quality over the last ten years has not improved and the trend over that period has not been to our favour. That situation has made it very difficult to secure a derogation from the norms that face other member states. I mean 24 of the 27 member states have to farm at 170 kg N/ha being spread but our derogation allows us to now farm up to 250 kg N/ha.

The derogation and nitrates directive are based on water quality and seeking water quality improvement so that has been the challenge. To get further flexibility or renew the derogation at the start of 2022 was made very difficult by virtue of the fact that we were not meeting those thresholds and the trend was going in the wrong direction so I put those economic arguments.

I am very conscious of farmers with small and medium-sized farms, particularly in some areas of the country, for whom this is a particular challenge and for whom, in terms of seeking to get an amendment to the current derogation, it would be the first priority to have flexibility. It would have been the first priority to get flexibility for them if we could get an amendment to the derogation. However, an amendment to the derogation would have required a new statutory process. A derogation is a legal entity so it would have required the Commission being willing to seek to reopen it, and member states being willing to vote to give us an amendment to our derogation. Unfortunately, it is clear that that is not possible. The Commissioner made it very clear to me that given that the derogation was only negotiated in the last 18 months, given the fact that it is the Commission's very clear view that the derogation that we have is the most flexible of any member state in the EU, and given the fact that our trend in water quality did not meet the thresholds that it simply was not viable to seek to amend that at this point in advance of it being renegotiated at the end of 2025.

I wanted to achieve an amendment but, unfortunately, that is simply not possible. Our objective now must be to work collectively to put ourselves in a position where we hold 220 kg N/ha in 2015.

To be clear, in our negotiation with the Commission, it wanted the 220 kg N/ha threshold to be lower. It would have been much lower but we fought hard to raise it to 220 kg N/ha. We continue the hard work and farmers are doing massive work across the country. We must continue that collaborative work to put ourselves in the strongest possible position for the derogation to be secured at the end of 2025.