Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

It requires that the good farming practice code should be made legally binding in nitrate vulnerable zones. Farm organisations had no problem with that requirement being implemented in law. Can the Minister explain what went wrong? The authoritative Teagasc publication on nutrient and trace element advice for grassland and tillage crops is referred to as the 'green book'. It is the code of good practice in this area — in effect, it is the bible for farmers. It gave people usage levels for fertilisers and so on. It is also the reference document on the specification for nitrates and phosphorous use for participation in the REP scheme.

Somebody intervened but nobody knows who it was. We cannot gain access to the documents that were used. We do not know who wrote them. Everybody went to ground when the pressure was felt. Who devised this? Who were the authors? From where did they get their information and from what scientific basis did they arrive at this conclusion? They have made a shambles of the whole thing. We will end up with a large number of people being ousted from farming activities. I do not speak of big farmers either. People with REPS plans in place will find they will not be able to achieve their targets. Where do we go from here?

Ongoing communication evidently took place between the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Department of Agriculture and Food and the farming organisations, so why did we end up at this point? The Department of Agriculture and Food evidently accepted the thrust and genesis of the 'green book', which was considered the best advice for farmers from Teagasc's farm advisers. It was accepted as part of the REPS 3 process that was agreed in early 2005. What happened and who intervened to say it was no longer acceptable? From where did the evidence come? Who blew the house down? Some official must be responsible and he or she should be identified. This matter is too serious to be ignored.

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government will have to delete most of the provisions from the regulations enacted in SI 788 of 2005. There is no use fiddling around with it. The Minister, Deputy Coughlan, should prevail upon the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to delete the regulations and go back to the drawing board. If necessary we should get independent scientific advice but we should not introduce something that would sound the death knell for Irish farming.

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