Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)

The nitrates directive was agreed by the EU in 1991, some 15 years ago, when the former Fianna Fáil leader Charles Haughey was Taoiseach. In the interim, the Government has acted as if it had never heard of the directive until recently. Meanwhile, in the drive to clean up brown water by limiting the use of livestock manure on farms to 170 kg per hectare, it seems that we have missed out on water quality. We share the best water quality in Europe with Switzerland and Norway, and we are ranked 23rd in the world according to a study by Columbia University.

What also seems to have been missed is the continued importance of agriculture to our economy. In my constituency in County Clare, there are 6,000 farms employing more than 11,500 people, all of whom will be affected by the directive. The delegation here last week said that farmers in Clare will be wiped off the map if the directive goes through. The difference between the REPS plan permits on the spreading of nitrogen fertiliser and the new nitrates directive restrictions is more than one bag per acre. The new restrictions on spreading slurry will dramatically increase the need for storage capacity on farms. Sadly, the lack of preparedness for this directive on the Government's part is typical of how it treats agriculture.

The nitrates directive is an example of regulation gone wrong — not too much, but the wrong kind applied in inappropriate circumstances. Originally, it was negotiated badly by the Government which stuck its head in the sand until the European Court of Justice found against it for failing to implement the directive. Since then, implementation has been badly thought out, and farmers do not even know what will happen. There is no direction from the Government, and all farmers know is that they are now liable for jail terms of up to six months for non-compliance. The recently announced deferral of implementation of the key element relating to phosphorous levels is the Minister's first sensible move in this debate, and I appeal to her to do the same regarding nitrates.

The other issue about which I would like to talk is labelling, to which some speakers tonight referred. The Government has failed to prevent deception of the consumer by allowing pork products to be falsely passed off as Irish packets of rashers when they are nothing of the sort. The two issues are related. Both ultimately affect Irish farmers' livelihood, contributing to a growing sense of powerlessness that they experience because of runaway bureaucracy, an uninterested Government and flooding of the market with cheap and insufficiently regulated produce. The most basic regulations——

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