Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-10
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

As I said earlier in response to Deputy Lowry, the Government has been working with the Commission on the nitrates derogation. The Commission, including the President of the Commission, has been extremely constructive on that. We have also been working with like-minded countries in terms of Mercosur. About 200,000 tonnes from Mercosur countries already comes into the European Union. There is no question that the original deal has been changed in some respects in terms of the legal instruments that the Commission has now introduced in respect of safeguards, including stronger sanitary and phytosanitary, SPS, checks. It was SPS checks that revealed the unacceptable discoveries in terms of hormone-infected beef across Europe. It is a significant issue in terms of the different standards, approaches and so forth. We also had the multi-annual financial framework to negotiate with the Commission, which will be quite serious if we do not get improvements for farming.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:27+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-10