Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I am surprised at Senator O'Meara's seconding the amendment. I do not believe that it follows the Labour Party approach. The Senator's colleague, Deputy Gilmore, might be aghast. I will take it that the Senator has seconded the amendment on a purely technical basis to get the discussion going as it is not primary Labour Party policy.

Senator Bannon's amendment touches on issues that have been raised by farming interests and have been the subject of extensive discussions with them. Those discussions have been productive and resulted in a number of positive outcomes. For example, in the Schedule we are clarifying interpretation issues that arose from the 1992 Act. We are bringing into Irish law the concession in the directive which allows practical considerations to be taken into account in the licensing of intensive agriculture. This is done in section 86(2) and we have also changed the definition of sow in paragraph 6.62 of the Schedule. That paragraph includes the directive's limit of 2000 places for production pigs. There are, however, two other types of pig producers: breeding only, for which the limit in the directive is 750 places; and integrated breeding and production, for which no limit or provision is specified in the directive. We must be fair to all types of producers, taking account of their impact on the environment.

Our experience in relation to licensing pig numbers indicates that the directive limit of 750 breeding sows is too high and would result in breeding units being treated more leniently than production units. The technical advice available to me is that the phosphorus loading from slurry produced by 650 breeding sows is similar to that produced by 2000 production pigs. The Bill provides accordingly in order to ensure that licensing takes effect at a similar point in terms of the environmental impact, whatever the type of intensive pig rearing operation. This is the most equitable approach for everyone involved in that business.

On the Senator's proposal to delete the reference in line 21 to 270 sows in an integrated unit, the House should note that most intensive pig rearing in Ireland is carried on in integrated units. The Senator's proposal would ensure that there would effectively be no reference in the Bill to integrated operations – the major feature of intensive pig rearing. This would not be satisfactory.