Nitrates Derogation: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-28 ============================================================ Paul Daly (FF), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister. I have eight minutes. I do not need eight minutes but if it had been a year ago, eight hours would not have been enough. As the Minister quite rightly said, the talking is done. He has delivered, and now it is about action and what needs to be done over the next three years. I acknowledge the role the Minister played in it, and thank and congratulate him on achieving the derogation. It was a fluid situation. I am a veteran of two agriculture committees and we got a bit of a slating the last time about the introduction of cow banding and a mid-term review. If there was no cow banding or no mid-term review, there would be no derogation. There is a bit of the same out there about having to do all these appropriate assessments, etc. If there were no appropriate assessments, if the Minister did not do what he had to do to abide by the habitats directive, there would be no derogation and we need that derogation. I thank him for the role he played. I thank the farmers who, through all their work up to the present point in time, have made sure that the EU could have the confidence to give us a derogation. Moreover, I know they will not be found wanting going forward in hopefully securing a further derogation in three years’ time, but at least in the meantime, ensuring our water quality improves. I thank the industry. The industry is often left out of this equation. There are 7,000 farmers in derogation and a lot of people out there think this whole thing is about those 7,000 farmers. They are basically the foundation of what is a massive industry. There are 54,000 jobs in Ireland directly related to our dairy industry and multiples of thousands of those jobs would have been lost if we did not secure the derogation. There have been different surveys and analyses done on this and it is estimated that the milk cheques that will be going out would be reduced by €555 million. That would be some loss to rural Ireland. That is a loss of €23,000 on average per farm and that is a family farm we must remember. The majority of Irish family farms would not survive farming below 170 kg N/ha because of the nature and size of our farms, the division of our lands and the geography of the country. This enhances that model that Irish agriculture was built on. While I thank the industry, the industry could give even more going forward. One good example has been mentioned, that is, one of the rivers that has been mentioned for the reduction of chemical fertiliser is the Slaney. We have a very good River Slaney project, which was led by Teagasc. Tírlán was a big driver in that. It is aware of the fact that it has skin in this game and it is contributing, but maybe it could contribute a little bit more going forward. I put out that call to the industry. It would be disingenuous not to say I stood up here on numerous previous occasions and preached about lag time. We are doing the work but we are not being given time for the work to be seen to have the desired effect before there is an assessment or a mid-term review or whatever. This time, we have three years as such. I have a question on that. While we have the full three years and hopefully all the good actions that were taken will be showing results by then and we will not have a lag time issue, the Minister might clarify a point. I have an issue with the fact that the appropriate assessments are going to start and have to start immediately. They are then going to be shelved until the end and nobody will know what the results were in any one individual area. If some of them are negative, we will not know if extra actions need to take place in that area and then we will get all the results of all these appropriate assessments together, at the end, when we are approaching renewal in 2028 or whatever. Could there be an issue there? I am not being critical; I am asking a question because I have a genuine concern about it. When you do a test, you analyse the results and take action based on the results. On this occasion, we are doing a test or an assessment and we have given the commitment we are going to shelve the results until they are all done, which will take the best part of three years. Will we have time to take the necessary actions? I will just ask the Minister that question. Again, I compliment the Government, the Minister and the Minister, Deputy Browne, on the introduction of a planning exemption for slurry. As my colleague, Senator Lynch, says, slurry storage is not a luxury. We need to continue funding TAMS but it is very welcome that if a farmer needs to build extra slurry storage to maintain the water quality in the area, he will not have to go through the rigours of making a planning application. I will also put the hammer on the Minister when it comes to the CAP negotiations. Farmers have to spend a lot of money to keep up the pace in regard to the derogation. I have just mentioned slurry. There is no additional income or profit from an investment like additional slurry storage. Farmers still have the day-to-day expenses and the upkeep of all the other aspects of their farm, which is sometimes neglected in order to spend the money wisely and meet the targets, for example, of maintaining the quality of water or the conditions they are obliged to meet under the derogation. We cannot keep spending all of the money on one section of the farm or in one direction or emphasis. We do not want to see other areas of the day-to-day running of the farm being neglected. CAP money is usually ring-fenced on farms for non-derogation expenses, for the want of a better phrase, so it is important that the CAP is maintained to at least the current level, going forward. We have had this conversation before. I will really put the hammer on the Minister and say, allowing for inflation, it needs to be increased. At the end of the day, based on the 22% reduction that is currently being talked about, we would probably call the status quo a good result but, hopefully, we will aim higher and possibly even deliver a higher amount. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-28/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:33+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-28