James Bannon (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House and thank him for taking this motion. It relates to the need for the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to clarify his position with regard to the nitrates action plan in light of the potential devastating impact on the pig and poultry industries and to accept responsibility for the directive, which is being treated as a political football, passing between the Departments of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and Agriculture and Food, with neither prepared to make the running, resulting in the sidelining of farmers whose livelihoods are at stake.

It now appears that the Minister has taken the bull by the horns and signed the directive into law last weekend. While that constitutes taking responsibility and action, it is highly debatable whether it is the right course of action, which the Minister and the Minister for Agriculture and Food know will put many farmers out of business. The various farming organisations are very annoyed about the Minister's actions. They have met on several occasions and a decision was taken at the Oireachtas joint committee last week requesting the Minister not to sign the directive into law until he met the farming organisations and Department officials tomorrow. However, he ploughed ahead.

There is no doubt that the issue has been blighted by the lack of co-ordination between Departments. Fine Gael believes that designating the whole country as a nitrate vulnerable zone, without a full evaluation of the impact it will have on farming practice, is extremely irresponsible. The European Commission expects the directive, including the operation of any derogation, to be fully implemented by 2007. Irish farmers will not be able to meet the deadline because the Minister's stalling means that no derogation deal will be secured until next year. This leaves farmers with a very short window in which to draw down grants and put in place waste storage facilities. I understand they will also have to put surplus storage water facilities in place. It is unlikely that farmers will meet this target. As I am a farmer, I understand farming. Farming cannot be carried out by the book. It requires many practicalities and common sense to operate a farm.

Officials from both the Departments of Agriculture and Food and the Environment, Heritage and Local Government have publicly acknowledged that pig, poultry and dairy producers will have a significant problem early next year with the transition from the current system to the new one as set out by the nitrates action plan. The reality is that the Department has cooked the books on the issue of the nitrates directive and is not prepared to provide any shred of scientific evidence to support the restrictions it proposes in regard to it. As they stand, the proposals will make every REPS plan illegal. REPS is supposed to be the benchmark for good farming practice and environmental protection. These plans will be made illegal because of the Minister's actions.

The pig and poultry industries account for 6% of the total nitrogen usage and 10% of the total phosphate usage in Irish agriculture. The recommendation of the phosphorus threshold currently rests at a P index of three on the basis of the REPS plan, good farming codes and the Teagasc green book. The new recommendations reduce this level to a P index of two. In the past, a farmer could choose to operate either on an index of two or three. It is unbelievable that representatives from both the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Department of Agriculture and Food have acknowledged that pig and poultry producers will have a significant problem early next year with the transition from the current system. It is shameful and disgraceful that no one is prepared to provide any flexibility in this regard. Their actions are an indictment of both Departments.

I hope the Minister is not abandoning farming. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Minister for Agriculture and Food should show some common sense in this regard. The officials should not have been arguing. They should have been putting together a package that would keep farmers on the land. Some 50% of the farming population has left since 2001 and more are prepared to leave the industry. Given the dreadful regulations to which the Minister has signed up, what young person will stay on the land? He does not understand rural Ireland. It will be a disaster in the spring of 2006.