Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)

I thank the Leas-Cheann Chomhairle. I will add three and a half minutes to my time which I wish to share with Deputy Penrose and Deputy Sherlock.

The debate is to be welcomed because it is not just about the future of agriculture but about the future of rural Ireland, which cannot be separated. If rural Ireland is to survive in the way we would like, we must bring together the responsibility for the management of agriculture, rural development and food production under one roof. It is a very artificial separation that rural Ireland and rural development is separate from the Department of Agriculture and Food. We need the same Minister to be responsible for agriculture and rural development. If Ireland is to survive, we must give that one Minister responsibility for food. The future of rural Ireland and agriculture depends on a joined-up approach in Government.

What should the Minister with responsibility for agriculture, rural development and food do to save Irish farming, and what is wrong with the current Government? Despite Deputy Carty's passionate description of how great it is, I have a few challenges to the questions he raised. The nitrates directive and food labelling are two aspects I want to address. My colleagues, Deputy Penrose and Deputy Sherlock will address, in particular, the nitrates and sugar beet aspects. I also want to speak on the nitrates directive and food labelling.

It is clear that a total mess has been made of the nitrates directive. None of us will deny that while there was a need for a nitrates directive, a fudge has taken place in recent weeks, especially in the past ten or 12 weeks, in that we did not have a nitrates directive. We had an opportunity to put in place a system that was workable but the Government failed to do so.

The main problem with the implementation of the nitrates directive is that the Government is insisting on using a statutory instrument to spell out how much or how little fertiliser Irish farmers might spread over their land. However, we know that the land's tolerance of fertiliser varies according to soil conditions, weather and a number of other different factors. This is why a number of other EU countries implemented the directive without stipulating precise amounts. In a number of other EU jurisdictions, farmers will follow a voluntary code of practice and together with a government inspector they will draw up a legally enforceable plan to govern when and how much nitrates they can spread on their land. In other words, an element of common sense will be introduced.

The value of the system developed elsewhere in Europe is that flexibility which allows for variations in the land's tolerance is built into the legislation transposing the directive. Thanks to this Government,however, Ireland now has more than 50 different straightjackets into which farmers must cram themselves to comply with the legislation and avoid a criminal conviction. The Government, through its unco-ordinated approach to implementing the nitrates directive, is threatening to destroy rural Ireland's largest industry, and with it rural Ireland itself. It is not that the nitrates directive is not important and that we should not have one — of course, we should. When I examined the figures last week, it occurred to me that one would need a PhD in soil science, an ion-exchange column and perhaps a small laboratory in the garden shed to meet the detail of the requirements.

I was pleased to hear the Minister saying that there would be simple uncomplicated instructions and guidance for farmers, but I hope they will have moved on significantly from what has already been made available to them.

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