Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry for interrupting. Dr. Archbold said, "if the Commission is willing to listen". What is the hope of that? I do not want to be codding farmers. That is it. The guillotine may be coming today or tomorrow. Someone in the Commission is setting out criteria to the Department, which is getting a raft of criteria from Europe, and is telling the Department that the Commission can give it something if it is able to achieve something else. I am trying to establish what the Commission is trying to achieve, especially with soil type, as Dr. Archbold said earlier, and the permeability of rock or heavy, free-draining soil. Are we on a hiding to nothing with what the Commission has laid out and what we are trying to achieve in the timeframe? That is what I am trying to establish. We are going around in circles at the moment. These criteria have been laid down by Brussels. Who laid down the criteria in respect of phosphates for all of the country? Who laid down the model and the criteria?