Ms Karin Dubsky:

My piece is possibly slightly too long. I am Karin Dubsky from Coastwatch and I am accompanied by Bernadette Connolly from Cork. Members have my opening statement, so I will jump through it, except to say we have worked for decades with farmers and other citizens on citizen science to try to give power and knowledge to citizens so they can understand and be part of the solution. We will only deal with questions three to six.

Question three was whether it is possible to maintain the nitrate derogation at the current level, while ensuring there is an improvement. Perhaps it is possible, but it is not probable. The reasons are very much in line with what Dr. McGoff said. With climate change, we cannot predict the weather. The improvements in water quality we now need are so onerous that fiddling with it will not work. We need a really massive action if we are to comply with the water framework directive by 2027. The time is tight. The task is huge.

Question four is whether the nitrates action programme is fit for purpose in protecting Ireland's water quality. To say "not quite" would be generous. While it includes lots of good ingredients, it is like cooking a cake with lots of good ingredients at the wrong temperature. It is not working. It is too complicated. People cannot follow it. Even if you read the instructions of how to do it eight times, even in the Irish Farmers Journal, which I bought a copy of, you will not be able to follow them.

Are additional supports required to ensure farmers can comply with the nitrates action programme? The answer is a wholehearted "Yes". We propose the committee thinks of it as a two-lane process. The main lane is for most farmers who will be told that this is no-derogation time and that the Government will help them to have a low fertiliser input. That help is needed because the headache farmers now have in trying to follow more and more prescriptions is leading to more and more upset in the farming community. Farmers need to know what they are doing. They need to be able to assess their waters. They do not all need to be able to kick sample streams and be ecologists, but they need to be able to use a simple nitrate test, like we do in Coastwatch. We provided a two-page handout on the kind of results we are finding. These tests are simple to use. You open the test, dip it and then you have the result. When I have finished speaking I will demonstrate.

Farmers also need to know how best to protect their waters from nitrates. They have to be able to see and to reduce the stocking rates. Then they will already see an improvement. They need to be able to value their nature-based solutions and to also be able to get money for reed beds and waters which help to control silt and nutrients. They need to be integrated into catchment management plans and other incentives so they are not on their own.

They are not on their own; farmers are part of the community and they need support to enable the transition from higher stocking rates, such as a cow retirement scheme.

Lane 2 would be for farmers who insist on derogation. There will be considerably fewer of them if this is the choice given. For those, we need a very strict transparent scheme where we know who the derogation farmers are and what the conditions are. The enforcement needs to be top class. For that we can also have a citizen science.

Are any additional resources required to ensure the measures required by the nitrates action programme are adequately enforced? In the lane 1 it is very much like in the olden days where people helped each other and nudged each other to best practice. In lane 2 it is very much prescription. People very much do their job and the onus is on the authority to make sure it advises the right measures, and that they watch it and adapt when needed. It does not wait for years and just watch the water pollution continuing.

At the moment where there are predictions of failure, where a farmer has full slurry tanks, where the season is closed or where there is lots of rain, that farmer is in a terrible position. As an environmentalist, I have received phone calls asking what they are to do. They need help and that needs to be sorted urgently. I am not coming with a solution there, but it must be sorted. We cannot leave a farmer in that fix when no matter what he does he is lost. Farmers with derogation do not get grants for extra slurry tanks. I am not saying that they should because that would drive them further down the intensive route. It must be acknowledged that this is a real problem today. Telling local authorities to enforce something where they know the heartache involved, which the farmer does, not seem fair.