Paddy McHugh (Galway East, Independent)

There is much hot air and bluster surrounding the introduction of the nitrates directive. The entire process is now so discredited that the only option is to withdraw it immediately and start again, this time with a practical and open approach making available to the public the scientific data and information on which decisions are made. The process is discredited and the public fashion of the criticism by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, of Teagasc was the final nail.

Why reinvent the wheel? In my view, it is simple. Whatever directive is to be introduced should be based on existing criteria which apply to the REP scheme. Teagasc has a standard manual in vogue since 2004 covering the spread of fertiliser, slurry etc. and there is no evidence whatsoever that any pollution of surface water, or indeed ground water, has occurred when the requirements of the Teagasc green book have been applied. The terms of the nitrates directive are more stringent than those applicable to REPS, although there is no evidence to show that the existing requirements are insufficient. This directive will impact strongly on farmers unless it is changed and may drive some farmers out of business. The action plan will place an additional bureaucratic burden on every landowner and farmer as farmers will be required to record every detail of their enterprises, irrespective of their ability to do so.

The draconian measures proposed to police this action plan are reprehensible. For example, the power to enter a private dwelling house at 24 hours' notice and the power of the Garda Síochána to arrest without warrant a person whom it suspects of having committed an offence are measures more akin to those of a dictatorship than a democracy.

The big polluters are not the farmers but sub-standard treatment plants and the absence of treatment plants in towns and villages throughout the country. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government should direct his energies to those problems and stop persecuting farmers.

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