Ireland's citizens were being held to ransom on the issue of clean water by a very successful farm lobby on the EU nitrates directive, Senator Feargal Quinn claimed yesterday.
Addressing the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs, which was being briefed by the Irish Farmers' Association, the Senator said that the voice of Ireland's water-drinkers was the only one not being heard on the matter.
"We have figures to show that our water quality levels are far behind Britain and, as I understand it, we are the only European country not to have implemented this directive on clean water," he said.
"There has been a very long delay in implementing this directive because of an effective farm lobby or political inability or unwillingness to deal with the issue."
Senator Quinn added: "I do believe that the water-drinkers, all the citizens of Ireland, are being held to ransom on this."
Replying to Senator Quinn, IFA president Pádraig Walshe said that the most recent figures on water quality, published earlier this week, showed that 96.6 per cent of Irish water reached the required standards.
"But that leaves 3.4 per cent, and that is not good enough and much higher than in Britain," retorted Senator Quinn.
Mr Walshe, in a lengthy submission to the committee, said that the nitrogen restrictions were excessive, unnecessary and would damage output. Farmers, as the largest users of water in the countryside, wanted clean water and were not opposed to controls, but not the excessive controls imposed by the directive.
If the directive was implemented in its current form, it would lead to a decline in water quality, because non-farm wastes currently being spread on farms would no longer be allowable.
"The levels being proposed in the directive make the difference between profitability and loss, and I believe it will cost millions to the sector and will mean the difference between young people staying on farms or leaving them," he said.
Mr Walshe insisted that the directive could not be imposed on an EU-wide basis since farming, weather and soil conditions differed from country to country. As examples, he cited Greece, where he pointed out that heat prevented growth for six months, and Norway, where the cold stopped growth for six months.
Asked by members of the committee why he had taken the IFA out of the partnership talks, Mr Walshe said that the Department of Agriculture had acted in bad faith by placing advertisements detailing implementation of the nitrates directive while he had been attempting to negotiate on it.