The European Union is likely to agree a derogation to the Nitrates Directive in November to allow Irish farmers use more organic fertiliser on their lands, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche said yesterday.
He was speaking following an Irish Times report that agreement had been reached between the Government and the EU to drop its 12-year legal action against Ireland in return for tougher penalties against farmers who broke the regulations.
Mr Roche said the conclusion of an agreement on the derogation from 170kg/nitrogen per hectare was the next stage in the process.
"There will be at least two further meetings of the Nitrates Committee on this issue and I expect the matter to be resolved in November," the Minister said in a statement.
The Labour Party's spokesman on agriculture, Mary Upton, said an increase in penalties for farmers who breached the limits was a price worth paying to end the country's legal wrangle with the EU.
"This legal battle has gone on long enough. The prospect of having daily fines imposed on us if we are in breach of the directive is something that must be avoided . . . This derogation is of critical importance for many farmers, and their representatives have argued that the 170kg per hectare limit is simply unworkable," she said.
While the Minister has not yet secured a commitment that Ireland will get this derogation, the signals seem reasonably positive. "Increasing the penalties on farmers who breach their limits may not be such a bad thing if it resolves this issue once and for all," she said.
"The main objective here is to ensure clean water supplies. We should be striving to achieve that in a way that allows farmers to carry on their vital business. After all, farmers and the agri-business form the backbone of our rural economy," she concluded.
Denis Naughten, the Fine Gael spokesman on agriculture, said he had no difficulty with increased penalties for someone who blatantly broke the law and polluted water.
"However, there is a very serious problem about inspections because a lot of these would be based on paper trails and record keeping," he said.
"I think it very unfair that a farmer should be penalised heavily for not having paperwork up to date or where he might go to prison because records showed that he did not move an animal off his land to comply with proper stocking rates," he said.
He said it was imperative that these issues be cleared up and on-the-spot inspections could take place in any case under Local Authority Regulations that gave local authorities the right to look for sources of a pollution outbreak.
Earlier yesterday, Irish Farmers Association president Pádraig Walshe called on Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan to issue the draft nitrates guidance documents because farmers were unaware of what was going on.
Mr Walshe said the proposal from the Department of Agriculture to start no-notice farm inspections was unacceptable and he called for the promised regional information meetings informing farmers of their obligations to begin immediately.
Ms Coghlan announced the department would be sending a draft of the handbook explaining farmers' obligations under the directive to the farming organisations in the coming days and, when agreed, to every farmer in the country. Information meetings would be held during November.
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