If you sup with the IFA, you should take a long spoon. The largest farming organisation in the country isn't noted for its use of gentle persuasion. And its new president, John Dillon, is said to have a touch of the Rottweiler about him. Save a thought then for poor Noel Dempsey, the minister with responsibility for sorting out water pollution problems in a general election year.
On the face of it, it is hard to know whether Mr Dempsey should be more worried about his Cabinet colleagues or about the IFA. On past occasions, when the Minister for the Environment got a campaigning bone between his teeth, such as ending the dual mandate between the Dáil and local government or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, he was abandoned and humbled by his colleagues. The same might happen if he antagonises the IFA.
So Mr Dempsey is hastening slowly. But time and EU patience is running out. It is now 10 years since the European Commission introduced the concept of nitrate vulnerable zones, where animal stocking levels and slurry and fertiliser spreading would be limited to protect water quality. But Ireland is the only country not to have designated a single protection area, in spite of worsening pollution.
That seems set to change. But only because the EU cut up rough. We have an appalling record. With just 1 per cent of the EU population, Ireland now accounts for 10 per cent of environment complaints under investigation by the Commission. The last CAP agreement on farm prices directly linked higher subsidies to progress on water pollution. And now the EU is threatening to withhold up to €2.5 billion in farm subsidies.
Charlie McCreevy, faced by reducing revenues, was not impressed, and Mr Dempsey announced he was going to do something about it. Even the Minister for Agriculture, Joe Walsh, was driven to remark that we had procrastinated for a long time and must make a decision soon. Then he and Bertie Ahern were invited to sup with Mr Dillon earlier this week. The occasion was the IFA president's inauguration dinner. And, with the diplomatic skill of a man wielding a chainsaw, Mr Dillon set out his agenda. There was, he told his audience, at least 12 marginal constituencies in the State where a modest swing would decide who was the next Taoiseach. And he would put issues to the political parties before election day.
One of those issues was environment legislation and nitrate pollution. Mr Dillon wanted to wind the clock back. All the scientific evidence of where responsibility for pollution lay, which had gone unchallenged while there was no threat of legislative action, had to be revisited in order to establish the "true cause of water pollution". He went on: "When we have the scientific results, I then want to enter negotiations with the Government aimed at a balanced solution. We must protect the environment, but we must do it without undermining commercial farming." It was a clear message, and the Cabinet decided not to adopt Mr Dempsey's well publicised proposals when it met the following day. Instead, discussions will now be held with farming organisations about the need to comply with EU directives. Mr Dempsey hopes to have a comprehensive waste management strategy agreed by his Cabinet colleagues within two or three weeks.
Of course, that will only be a beginning. It may be enough to get the EU off the Government's back. But the drafting of regulations and legislation is likely to take a further year, a problem for the next government.
Farmers deserve some sympathy. Their living standards lagged other sectors during the growth of the Celtic Tiger. Our 123,000 farmers had an average income of €14,600 in the year 2000 and 68 per cent of this came by way of direct payment from Europe. The 37,000 full-time farmers brought in an average income of €28,000. But their number is expected to fall to 20,000 by the year 2010.
Off-farm employment is an increasingly important income element. And tourist-related enterprises, including farm accommodation, fit into the picture. That is why measures to combat water pollution are so important for rural communities, not just for drinking water quality but for the development of tourism.
The statistics are damning. Agriculture and its related industries now generate 80 per cent of all waste in this State. Seventy-three per cent of inputs of phosphates to water and 82 per cent of nitrates are agriculture based. Some 64 million tonnes of slurry and manures are now spread on land. Forty years ago, with lower stocking levels, 84 per cent of our waterways were unpolluted. That figure has now fallen to less than 50 per cent. Nitrates are a known cause of serious ill-health and defects in young children. Mr Dempsey said he could not give farmers "the right to poison themselves and their neighbours". New regulations requiring farmers to limit stocking levels; to store slurry during the wet, winter months and to prevent the run-off of manures into waterways are being prepared.
Given Mr Dillon's warning that nothing should be done to undermine commercial farming, confrontation appears inevitable. The reality is that stocking levels on many commercial farms are unsustainable because the resulting slurry cannot be spread on the available acreage without causing pollution.
An alternative approach would be to construct a thermal treatment plant to process liquid farm waste into fertiliser. But it is difficult to envisage any community welcoming the construction of such a plant in the present, NIMBY climate.
Mr Dempsey is talking tough. Financial pressure from the EU may finally convince his Cabinet colleagues of the need for new, anti-pollution regulations. But not, Sweet Jesus, before the general election.