Ulick Burke (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Creighton for sharing her time on this important debate. I congratulate her on the part she played as regional director and on a successful referendum campaign and very successful results in the Dublin region in the most recent referendum.

One of the main reasons for the rejection of the Lisbon treaty in the first Lisbon treaty referendum was that rural Ireland resisted and was totally dismayed by the way in which European legislation was transposed into Irish law. As a result, the farming community throughout the country said "No". Most rural constituencies show that. There is no doubt but that the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government have serious questions to answer in this regard. I outlined to the Minister for Foreign Affairs this morning the significance of ratifying this Bill and pointed to the very important ancillary provisions in the legislation which provide for the increased parliamentary oversight of European affairs provided in the treaty.

It is important to realise that over the past couple of years the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has insisted on farming by calendar. That has been a totally futile exercise in so far as the spreading of slurry was a major issue and the best times for the appropriate weather conditions were being ignored with farmers forced to spread it in flooded fields throughout the country. That is totally foreign to proper farming and those types of practices have to change. I can give other examples. An industry has been created out of inspection and regulation, adopting and implementing EU directives with the zeal of medieval inquisitors. Everybody in Irish farming who has experienced inspections would clearly respond in such terms. They are being set up as criminals and fraudsters in many instances. That is wrong and while this type of ineptitude continues, Europe will always take second place. It is just not acceptable for this to continue and I believe the Minister for Foreign Affairs will be taking it up with his counterpart, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, to ensure that it does not continue.

I can give the Minister of State a couple of examples before I hand over to Deputy McHugh. Regarding compliance with the single farm payments scheme, and the inspections that occur, if a briar is hanging from a hedgerow, a penalty is imposed. There is no criterion for the inspections. In total contradiction, oddly enough, under the REP scheme a corridor about 2.5 m wide must be left so that there can be no activity within this space to the hedgerow. That is a contradiction. A penalty is imposed, in the first instance, on the single payment and in the other case, if there is an intrusion regarding REPS, another penalty is imposed. That is totally reckless on the part of the Department and the officials and inspectors who insist on that type of behaviour. It is important, therefore, to have such policies rectified once and for all. If Lisbon and the secondary provisions of the Bill are to be implemented, it is crucial to re-open that area.

I ask also that the habitats directive be re-examined. In County Galway - as my Galway West colleague, Deputy Pádraic McCormack, knows better than I - some 75% of Connemara is designated for conservation. More than 40% of the entire county is designated. One cannot apply for planning permission if one is adjacent to one of those designated areas. That is simply not acceptable.

The idea that the people who have, for centuries, been cutting turf in rural Ireland, particularly County Galway, cannot continue to do so except under the derogation obtained by the Minister is ludicrous, just because we want to preserve the bogland. This is totally wrong and must be faced up to. Questions must be re-opened where mistakes were made in the past, to allow people to continue to practise farming and go about their other activities in a reasonable way. Whether this is a matter for either the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government or the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, or both, perhaps the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Martin, can persuade them that this has to stop and all the restrictions on farming must be changed.

We now have a situation where people who grow grain cannot sell to neighbouring farmers because of restrictions. Who are we protecting in this instance?

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