Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the officials. They are often here in an us-and-them scenario. However, I accept, as I think everybody out there does, that we are all on the one side on this issue. There is nothing to be gained from us arguing with them or telling them what they already know. I accept the bona fides of the Department and Minister. I have discussed the issue at length with the Taoiseach and Mr. Callanan is quite right that he has taken it to the highest level with Ms von der Leyen. We are all on the one page on the issue. How we get it over the line is the question. We need to show that united front. If can play around with a Winston Churchill quote, never before were so many dependent on so few. This is not just about derogation farmers. Let us consider the amount of money invested in stainless steel in creameries and processing plants that will not function without milk. Let us consider the amount of jobs that those processors have created. There are people out there who probably do not know what a derogation is but whose jobs are in jeopardy if we do not maintain the derogation. With that in mind, I am not going to give the witnesses a hard time but they must keep up the battle.

I have a few questions that are mainly based on correlation and what has happened with us being requested to do the appropriate assessment. Deputy Aird has covered the time issue. This derogation ends on 31 December. We are in the mouth of October now. There is no way all the appropriate assessments in the catchment areas are going to be done. Are we talking to the Commission about an extension? What do the witnesses see?

There has to be a plan B for 1 January. Is there a plan B? What if somebody out there, in his or her wisdom, decides that this has to be done before we can get our next derogation and there will be no extension in the interim? Common sense will say that will not happen but we all know where common sense comes into a lot of these things.

How much of this has been influenced by the An Taisce case, if the witnesses can comment? I appreciate that they probably cannot.

On the EPA results last week, Mr. Massey rightly said that this needed to be looked at over a period of time. It does not make sense from an agricultural perspective to say the nitrates content in the water is up when we have proof that the use of artificial fertiliser is down. Has anybody ever shown correlation between stocking density and water quality in the specific areas where there are derogations and the stock numbers are high? I do not think that correlation has been shown. Is that not a case we have to make, in that there are more pollutants than agriculture and dairy farming?

The witnesses might comment on those questions and if I have time left, I have another couple. I want to hear their comments on what I have said. I know they cannot disclose during the negotiation process much of the communication that has happened, but surely to God there is conversation at this stage about an interim extension while we are doing what we were asked to do. We have never said we will not do what the Commission has asked us to do.