Nitrates advice 'will stand or fall on the science'
Minister Mary Coughlan told the Fianna Fáil agriculture and food conference in Birr, Co Offaly, last Sunday: "We will bring it to the Commission. It will stand or fall on the science.
"If the Commission accept the science then we should get some improvements in the regulations. We will do our very best. But let there be no doubt where the decision lies it is with the Commission and their scientists."
Minister Coughlan said the nitrates directive has caused a lot of anxiety to farmers in the last few months. They have had a fair amount of misleading information thrown at them and it has only added to the confusion.
"You would imagine, from some of the statements that have been appearing, that we in the Department of Agriculture have been caught up in a sinister plan by the Department of the Environment and the EPA to wipe out commercial farming.
"I hope no one seriously believes that I, or Minister Walsh before me, would be that gullible. The Commission has been putting pressure on Ireland since 2000 to get the nitrates directive sorted out.
"At every stage, we in the Department of Agriculture have worked to make sure that there were no unnecessary burdens put on farmers and that the future of commercial farming was safeguarded.
"But we have had to deal with the realities of the situation and try to make the best of them.
"We were facing the prospect of massive fines on Ireland. We also had to recognise that the Commission could and would hit our funding for agriculture if we didn't come into line.
"It was in that context, and after a lot of consultation with the farmers and the other stakeholders, that we negotiated our action programme and regulations."
Minister Coughlan said it is simply not true that there could have been a different outcome.
She said she wants to work with the pig and poultry sectors in this country towards securing the continued development of both sectors.
"I am therefore proposing that a working group made up of farmers, processors, Teagasc, the universities and my Department be set up straight away with a view to devising practical solutions to environmental and waste issues.
