Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

I wish to share time with Deputies Connaughton, Enright, Breen and Twomey.

I was waiting for the Minister for Agriculture and Food to give Deputy McHugh a big hug and say, "Welcome back", but unfortunately that did not happen.

The constant stream of bad news coming from the Department of Agriculture and Food is a major source of concern to everybody in the farming community. The two issues exciting farmers in my constituency are the sugar beet industry and the infamous nitrates directive. The sugar beet industry has been a vital element of the agriculture sector in County Wexford and its loss will have severe consequences for the farmers, contractors, hauliers, and other people working within the industry. There are rural families who have been committed to the industry for many years and through several generations. The loss of the industry is a major blow to many farmers' livelihoods.

The Minister has failed to outline where the division of the €145 million compensation will take place. The lion's share must not go to Greencore; it must go to help the farmers. I hope the Minister is listening. Many families operating progressively and successfully within the beet sector face an income crisis.

The Minister has also failed to ensure that their incomes can be protected through access to adequate compensation, reaching consensus on the reference years for claiming the beef price compensation by way of the EU single farm payment scheme, ensuring clarity regarding prices for next year, and the initiatives to advance alternatives to the sugar beet crop and land use. The failures on this issue alone will cause untold hardship and distress to farmers throughout the country, especially those in County Wexford.

The introduction of the nitrates directive has been a shambles. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, informed us that between 13 and 15 years of planning have gone into this issue. I would like to see what planning he put into it because he directed this overnight. The farmers, however, have not received any information briefings on the matter. Furthermore, the restrictive nature of parts of the plan means the interpretations of the directive contradict the REPS plan submitted to the Department of Agriculture and Food this year.

Other farmers, especially in the pig and poultry sectors, face a major predicament to reconcile the viability of their farms with the restrictive practices imposed under the directive. The Government has defended the basis of this plan on the grounds that it now appears to question scientific information.

Water quality has also gone quickly off the agenda. We saw the unseemly behaviour of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government playing the blame game with Teagasc on national television last night. It became obvious that the one person who should have made a clear, concise statement on the matter, namely, the Minister for Agriculture and Food, had fallen silent. She disappeared before Christmas and for the month of January and is in the House now only because the Irish Farmers Association has put her under severe pressure over recent days.

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