Mr. Thomas Cooney:

I welcome Deputy Cahill's comments on the importance of the derogation and that all sectors need to contribute. We are very acutely aware of the importance and have been very busy all year with lobbying and meetings. We visited the European Commission in Brussels earlier this year to explain the huge investment that farmers have made and all the initiatives we have such as the rural development plan. Over 50% of the measures in GLAS are aimed at improving water quality. We told it about the IFA Smart Farming initiative which also contributes to improving water quality. GLAS needs to be re-opened because a number of farmers are not in it. There are only 50,000 farmers in GLAS. There is an underspend in the rural development plan so why not re-open GLAS as a measure to encourage more farmers into it? Anyone who is interested must fence off water courses. There are other measures in it that contribute to it.

The Smart Farming initiative has identified lime. There is a soil pH deficit in nearly every farm we have gone to. Members will see in our submission that we called for some kind of grant or subsidy to encourage people. That is something we are still going to continue to push for. We have not made much progress on it but is something that would greatly improve our water quality.

Deputy Kenny asked about the scale of anaerobic digestion. We are waiting for a refit tariff or the renewable heat proposals to go to Cabinet. We will be calling for the pig and poultry sector to be addressed. It would be one of the answers to the pig and poultry sector. We would also encourage the option for a community buy-in to it so that locals can invest in it if they want. It would be a win-win situation for everybody. It would help us to meet our renewables heat targets plus electricity and improve our water quality all in one.

The issue of local authorities, wastewater treatment plants and direct discharges needs to be addressed. Every sector needs to step to it.