Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to draw the Taoiseach’s attention to the issue of the nitrates derogation. I attended an IFA meeting just outside Dunleer approximately a month ago.

Members of the Taoiseach's party were there. The meeting was to deal with the nitrates derogation and Aine O'Connell from the IFA dairy policy executive spoke. In fairness, sometimes one can get a better quality of narrative or communication at these meetings than happens out in the wider world. There was an attempt to say water quality was very important but was impacted by the fact there was a huge increase in population. In fairness, she shut that conversation down straight away. She said we should be absolutely clear that when we talk about nitrates, this relates to cattle and farming and that we must keep our house in order and that it is an absolute necessity that rogue operators are dealt with because they do everybody a disservice. The understanding, as I said, among some of the political representatives who were there and the IFA was that there was to be some form of negotiation or at least more communication with the Commission. When the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, had a Zoom meeting and said that was it, that was part of the reason there was some shock. What was the communication between the Government and even some of its own elected representatives and, beyond that, with the IFA, if we already knew this was a done deal?

The Taoiseach, alongside the Minister, has looked to have the Commissioner over. What is the expectation in relation to that? While accepting that water quality is of the utmost importance to us, there are some disputes in relation to how this was gauged.

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