Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

The material, particularly the tabular statements which are the issue here, comes from published Teagasc material. There is no mystery about it. It is a transposition of advice that is long published. It comes from Teagasc's green book. There has been some modifications in those tables but the modifications have been upwards.

With regard to the comment about who is doing the best for farming, this is a very difficult time for farming. It is important that we apply this directive. I compliment the Deputy for making his points so accurately because there are some people in this House who would ignore them in terms of the dangers to drinking water and water in general, which is the purpose of the directive. That is why I, as Minister, have signed this regulation. It is 13 and a half years late, and a variety of Ministers before me could have done it but did not. The former Minister, Deputy Noel Dempsey, did a huge amount of work on this and almost came to the point where he could have signed off on it. To be frank, if it had been signed off then we would have been in a better position than we are now, and credit should be given to Deputy Noel Dempsey for that.

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