Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

Both the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and I are disappointed that the compromise position of the Brosnan report was not accepted. As the Deputy knows proposals were made in 2003, which were not acceptable to the bodies and therefore further discussions took place. The use of zoning is accepted in principle by the Commission. However, unfortunately it regarded the specified zones to be inappropriate. Following a meeting between the farming bodies, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and me, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government will proceed to defend robustly our original proposals. This will be based on the scientific data submitted by the experts. With his officials he will argue that the proposals should be accepted, as they are scientifically sound.

The question as to whether parts of the country should have been zoned and others not zoned is now almost superfluous. Unfortunately, the Commission was ultimately not happy with the proposed action plan. We need to get agreement quickly on the issue, as the implications of not doing so would mean that a proposal for derogation would not be accepted by the Commission and certain payments could be held up. We now need to try to ensure that in the defence of the proposals, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government should be in a position to get agreement from the Commission.

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