Mr. Francie Gorman:

Absolutely. For me, the issue is that there needs to be a longer-term view taken of the results as well. If you look at it over a short term such as a 12-month period, it is not acceptable. They need to look at those results over a five- or ten-year period and give the measures that farmers are taking on farm time to show that they will deliver an improvement in water quality. For me, it would be a shame in four or five years' time if you see an improvement in water quality, which I believe you will, that the reduction in stocking rate from 250 kg N/ha to 220 kg N/ha may well be said by some to be why we get an improvement in water quality while in reality, it will be the measures that farmers took on-farm and the amount of money that they invested on-farm to improving water quality that will probably have delivered the results. That is why it is critical to support farmers to invest in more slurry storage capacity. As Mr. Drennan said earlier on, it gives us an opportunity to spread it at a better time of the year with the use of low-emission slurry-spreading equipment. Slurry should be viewed as an asset. Instead, some people view it as a waste material. It is anything but. Considering what we have done on our farms in terms of reducing our fertiliser usage, biodiversity and you name it, we have taken massive steps over the past five years and we have got to be given credit for that. Maybe John Murphy has a view on it as well.