Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 181: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the status of the nitrate action plan; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33770/05]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The implementation of the nitrates directive is a matter in the first instance for the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. At the end of July, his Department formally submitted Ireland's national action programme under the directive to the European Commission. The next step is for the Minister to make regulations to give legal effect to the action programme. My Department, supported by Teagasc, has been assisting the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in finalising these regulations. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government published the draft regulations on 7 October 2005 for public consultation. The consultation period closed on 4 November and I understand that some 70 submissions were received. The two Departments are now assessing these submissions, and when that is done the regulations will be finalised.

The final stage of the process, but an extremely important one, is for Ireland to secure a derogation from the general organic nitrogen limits in the directive so that farmers can operate, under appropriate conditions and controls, up to a level of 250 kg of organic nitrogen per hectare. My Department and Teagasc developed the derogation proposals in consultation with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Preliminary discussions have commenced with the Commission about the derogation application and I will be pressing strongly to have these discussions concluded as early as possible in 2006.

To help farmers meet their obligations under the action programme, I am seeking approval from the European Commission for very significant improvements in the farm waste management scheme. These include increasing the grant-rate for both animal housing and slurry storage from the current rate of 40% to 60%, with 70% being available in the four zone C counties, significantly higher investment ceilings, the extension of the scheme to sectors such as pigs and poultry and the removal of any minimum income requirement from farming from the scheme.