Vol. 1042 No. 2
1. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to outline what discussions or engagements he has held with his ministerial colleagues to ensure that every effort is made to minimise the impact on traditional fishing grounds from the development of offshore renewable energy; and if he supports the principle of co-creation when designating areas for offshore renewable energy or marine protected areas. [34496/23]
What level of engagement has the Minister had with his counterparts about the shared marine space and how do we maximise the potential of our marine space for our fishing communities and renewable energy while also protecting the marine ecosystem?
I thank the Deputy for his question. This is an important issue, so we must ensure that everyone works together in progressing future offshore opportunities and that all considerations are taken into account. Commercial sea fishing and aquaculture activities are long-standing, pre-existing and traditional activities in the marine environment. The Deputy will agree that our seafood resources are an important national economic asset that generate a great benefit to the economy of €1.3 billion every year, with approximately 15,000 jobs created as a result.
In July 2021, the Government published the national marine planning framework, which was our first national framework for managing marine activities. The framework outlines the vision of how we want to use, protect and enjoy our seas in the years up to 2040 and is underpinned by the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021. The Government introduced these two important instruments to set out how Ireland would move forward in the development of new and emerging uses of maritime space in a way that acknowledged and considered existing blue economy activities, a crucial part of which is seafood production.
Any proposals for marine spatial plans that may arise from the Maritime Area Planning Act must be consistent with the national marine planning framework. The Act allows for the preparation of designated maritime area plans, DMAPs, for specific purposes and I am aware that the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications intends to prepare such DMAPs for offshore renewable energy. In fact, this plan-led approach to the future development of offshore renewable energy is essential for an orderly and stable transition to the new ocean economy activity and has been welcomed within the fishing industry in preference to the proliferation of exploratory development sites that has been taking place.
Together with the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, I welcomed the establishment of the seafood-offshore renewable energy working group, which is chaired by Captain Robert McCabe. I understand that protocols on communication are soon to be published by the group.
The Deputy also asked about marine protected areas. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has not yet published the Bill that will set out the process by which these are to be developed. I am confident the Bill will reflect strong inclusive principles and the observations provided by the fisheries representative bodies during pre-legislative scrutiny.
I was motivated to put this question after meeting inshore fishermen from the east coast, where they have had a bad experience of offshore renewable energy development. They were effectively told about it after the fact. This has had a serious impact. Fishers from Dublin and Wicklow have built up a good whelk fishery, but it is under serious threat as a result of what has happened.
Will the Minister agree to meet the National Inshore Fishermen’s Association, in particular the fishers from the east coast who are on that body, and listen to their experience so as to ensure that what they have been through is not repeated anywhere on this island? This is a shared marine resource with three key stakeholders – the people who protect our ecosystem, the fishing communities and the offshore renewable energy industry. We need to ensure there is a level playing pitch for all.
I am happy to meet them further. I regularly meet the inshore fisheries forum. I would encourage our inshore fishers to become organised through the regional and national forums. Their voice has not been represented properly in our fisheries’ representative infrastructure. This has been a major weakness and has meant that, in many cases, they have not had fair representation or a fair deal. I have worked to ensure that is corrected. I know the Deputy supports me strongly in that regard.
I have discussed this matter with the National Inshore Fisheries Forum representatives and would be happy to do so again. It is important that, as we progress the significant energy opportunities in the blue economy, we work together to ensure that all interests are properly accommodated and respected and that we find the appropriate balance to the benefit of all involved, particularly our people. We must ensure the marine resource is protected, but also harnessed in a way that serves everyone’s well-being.
The inshore fishers on the east coast have had an horrific experience. It can never be repeated anywhere in Ireland. They have correspondence, which I have seen, from the Director General of the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, DG MARE, Ms Charlina Vitcheva. She laid out very clearly the balance that needed to be struck between developing offshore renewable energy and protecting the marine ecosystems, fishing communities and traditional fishing grounds.
To be frank, Minister, we have had these exchanges before. I hope there will be changes in the culture in the Minister’s Department because I do not believe that fishing communities have been valued the way they should have been. The events on the east coast happened because there was no respect for fishing communities and fishers. The sole motivation was just one stakeholder, that being, renewable energy. I hope that culture will be brought to an end and we deal with this properly in the best interests of everyone.
To be clear, officials in my Department have worked consistently to ensure the voice of fishers is heard across the Government, which is where the challenge lies. It is always heard within the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, but some of these issues are led by other Departments. Like fishers, my Department’s officials have always sought to ensure that engagement exists. There is a constant push, as one must make one’s voice heard constantly. I am raising this matter at Cabinet level all of the time to ensure fishers and their representatives play a key part in how we step forward on this. They were on the sea and knew how to use it to everyone’s benefit long before other opportunities arose. While offshore wind now presents a great opportunity, we must respect those who have been using the sea for many years and whose livelihoods depend on it as we progress our plans.
2. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine whether his Department has funded campaigns by the National Dairy Council and Bord Bia about the supposed "sustainability" of Irish milk (details supplied); and whether he has concerns around these campaigns regarding climate disinformation or greenwashing, given the state of the climate and biodiversity crises. [35135/23]
I do not know how the Minister reacted to it, but I found the bombardment by the National Dairy Council’s campaign around World Milk Day recently, particularly on television, alarming. It was nothing other than a greenwashing exercise. I was alarmed that it portrayed a need for us all to consume more and more dairy on the grounds that it was efficient, good for the planet, made everyone look happy-clappy, green and healthy. Will the Minister comment on this? Is he worried about it? Has the Government funded any of this advertising in any way?
I thank the Deputy for her question. Milk is a sustainable, safe and very nutritious food product and we are among the best in the world in how we produce and deliver it. Whenever I listen to nutritionists on television or radio, they advocate for the nutritional benefits of milk as a food. As such, it is important that milk and all the dairy products that come from it are produced. Thankfully, we in this country do that in a way that is better than anywhere else in the world. Our farm families across the country do a tremendous job in this regard. Long may that continue. It is our objective to work to support them, not only in continuing production, but in ensuring that it is done in a way that is sustainable in terms of its emissions footprint and how it intertwines with the environment around us.
The National Dairy Council is a private, farmer-funded representative body.
It is approved as an aid applicant under the EU school milk scheme and that is the only context in which my Department provides it with funding. My Department has not made any funds available to the National Dairy Council for any advertising or promotional campaigns. If the Deputy has any concerns about the veracity of claims made in an advertising campaign, she can always contact the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland, ASAI, which will consider and fully assess any complaint she may have.
Funding to Bord Bia is made annually by way of an Exchequer grant from my Department in order to fulfil its functions to promote, assist and develop the marketing of Irish food and drink. Bord Bia promotes on the twin bases of quality and sustainability. To be very clear to the Deputy, Bord Bia is not spreading climate disinformation. It is quite the opposite. It is a fact that Ireland has a comparative advantage in grass-based livestock production and the carbon footprint of a unit of milk produced here is one of the lowest among milk-producing countries globally because of our grass-based system.
I certainly will be making a complaint to the ASAI. In fact, I think it has already gone in. This advertising of dairy and the manner in which it was done is absolute greenwashing and it is disgraceful. It is interesting it came in the same week RTÉ did the exposé on the level of cruelty to animals that takes place in that industry. Every year, the industry slaughters 35,000 male calves because they are absolutely useless and those that are exported for the veal industry are treated like they are vermin. Nobody in the country who has a heart would not have been shocked by the level of unnecessary cruelty seen in the RTÉ exposé. Then in the ad breaks we got a lovely, happy-clappy image of how that industry conducts itself.
What the Minister just claimed about the industry here having one of the lowest levels of emissions in the world is based on research conducted in 2004 and a report published in 2010. If he has a more up-to-date report, I ask him to share it. As far as I can see, the only other reports that head towards refuting what the Minister said come from the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA.
I agree with the Deputy about the scenes we saw on "RTÉ Investigates" on Monday night. They were absolutely unacceptable and totally intolerable. I have launched an investigation and it will be robustly followed up. We cannot have any corner of our agrifood sector in which those types of practices happen. They are certainly not representative of what happens on farms across the country or in our food sector. However, they happened. They cannot be allowed to happen and we are investigating that.
There are lots of advertisements on television with happy families, but that is not to say every family in our country is happy or that people always respect one another. Otherwise we would not need the Garda or Tusla. It is likewise with the rules and regulations we have on the treatment and welfare of our animals. We have very robust regulations in place to ensure animals are treated with respect and have good welfare, but it does not mean people cannot abuse animals and not follow those laws. We take an exceptionally hard line on any mistreatment that happens there. That will certainly be the case with respect to what was shown in the "RTÉ Investigates" programme.
I do not agree we have very robust measures to prevent cruelty to animals. If we had, we would not have seen that report. It is also extremely cruel to separate the male calves from their mothers at birth and to slaughter so many of them. It is an outcome of the industry itself and the fact we are producing such a large dairy herd. We are increasing our emissions from dairy year on year. I remind the House agriculture accounts for the most CO2 emissions and we are not challenging ourselves at all to bring them down in this environmental crisis.
I draw the Minister's attention to the EPA reports that show the increase in the herd and in milk production is a driver of increasing emissions. There is no way to get around this but to acknowledge that is happening and that all the cruelty and related aspects of it are part and parcel of this industry and the way it is being managed. I do not believe for a minute none of the arms of the State knew of the level of cruelty; they just turned a blind eye to it.
I dispute the Deputy's last point entirely. There can be no place for the type of behaviour we saw on "RTÉ Investigates". I will not tolerate that as the Minister responsible for agriculture, nor indeed will anyone in the sector with responsibility. We will clamp down on it in every way we possibly can.
The Deputy made a point about emissions. There is no doubt we saw an increase in our dairy herd after the removal of quotas in 2015 and that led to an increase in emissions. That increase happened because the herd had been constrained since the early 1980s when quotas were first introduced. However, the increase that happened has now plateaued and we have seen a stabilisation of the herd in the last two to three years. The production of food does not have to mean our emissions go up in the time ahead. In fact, the opposite is true. It is about decoupling the continuation of food production from the emissions footprint of it. Just yesterday we produced the new Teagasc marginal abatement cost curve, MACC, in relation to how that can be stepped out between now and 2025. Farmers are more proactive in taking the steps that will see our emissions reduced than any other sector of the economy.
3. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will confirm if he sought a higher funding allocation under the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, as part of the EU multi-annual financial framework, MFF, mid-term review; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34634/23]
Will the Minister confirm whether he sought a higher funding allocation under the Common Agricultural Policy as part of the EU multi-annual financial framework, MFF, mid-term review and make a statement on the matter?
I thank the Deputy. I take it he is referring to the mid-term review of the European Union's 2021-2027 MFF, as it is the financial framework that sets the funding allocations across the various headings of the EU budget, including the Common Agricultural Policy. Last month the Commission published its proposals for a limited and targeted revision of the 2021-2027 MFF, which is the overall budget for all European Union spending. Ireland's response to the proposed targeted review is led by the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Finance in close co-ordination with the Department of the Taoiseach. The review is quite limited and restricted to a number of specific policy challenges, notably the EU supports for the Ukrainian Government, migration and expected higher interest payments on the EU’s debt. The budget for the Common Agriculture Policy does not form part of the Commission’s proposed amendments in this midterm review exercise. Nor does the latter include the other large spending area of cohesion. The Government engaged with the Commission both before and after the publication of these proposals. Among our priorities, we stressed to the Commission the need to ensure the hard-fought funding provisions for the Common Agricultural Policy are protected and that there should be no proposals to divert CAP funding to other spending headings. I am glad this is reflected in the Commission’s proposals, but I and my officials will remain vigilant as the review is negotiated by the EU’s General Affairs Council in the months ahead.
We are in a five-year CAP programme now. Entitlement values within Pillar 1, for example, are set in stone until the end of 2027. We are rolling all the Pillar 2 payments and all the various schemes out at the moment. Most of them are five-year contracts. The Government has delivered a 50% increase in our national funding contribution to Pillar 2 and to CAP to ensure those schemes can be massively strong. An example of that is the new suckler scheme, where cows are being paid at a rate of €150 a head for the first 23 compared with €90 a head for the first ten, which was the case until last December. That is a commitment we have and one we will look to continue to back.
I thank the Minister for his response. We accept that while the current CAP is higher than before, he must realise that in real terms it is substantially reduced as Irish farmers are dealing with rising costs of doing business while at the same time being expected to do more with their payments. The CAP was brought in for food production first, but at this stage it has been eaten up by green issues and climate change. The amount of bureaucracy and red tape piled onto farmers now means they are doing more work for more or less the same money.
It would not have been an issue if the Government had listened to the Opposition. Sinn Féin previously called for a higher CAP allocation the Government failed to secure.
While the current CAP is higher, we are not getting the same bang for our buck from the money. The Minister was given a means to address that back in January when the EU Agriculture Commissioner said he would support a higher CAP budget under the multi-annual financial framework, MMF, review. So far there has been very little reporting on the terms of the review, which commenced in June. We want to see an update from the Minister on whether he sought a higher CAP allocation.
The mid-term review is not a capital review; it is a review across the EU budget and it is quite narrow in relation to the items it identifies. We fought hard at the start, when the multi-annual financial framework was negotiated and published, to make sure we could push it to be as high as it could possibly be. We were one of the countries pushing for a higher CAP budget. There was lots of downward pressure on it and we were advocating and pushing to try to get it higher. There is no doubt there has been pressure on the CAP budget at European level over subsequent CAP negotiations. That is something we have continuously resisted. My sense of it is that if we were to reopen the multi-annual financial framework in relation to CAP in particular, I would not see that as being to our benefit, because there would be lots of pressure on to use that funding for other things rather than to put more into it. That was our experience when it was negotiated the first time, when we pushed back very hard. I want to see that CAP budget protected and increased. We have worked here at national level, where we have the full competency. We are one of 27 member states and we have to fight with all of them at European level, but at national level we have delivered a 50% increase in funding to CAP-----
I thank the Minister. He will get a chance to come back in.
-----which is the highest it has ever been between CAP programmes.
I accept what the Aire is saying, but could he tell us what was the result of the extra push when he sought the extra money? Earlier in the year, the agriculture committee in Europe said that given the rate of inflation tens of billions of euro were effectively wiped off CAP. This affects every farmer in the country. The Minister has a duty of care to represent them and to get the highest allocation possible under CAP. The Minister said he pushed for extra funding. Could he tell us how much extra he received or if he got any extra? What negotiations went on?
The Minister has an obligation to ensure that CAP funding is secure so that it supports our family farms, because they are the main part of our rural communities. They supply and feed massively into what way this country is run.
The original proposal, when the multi-annual financial framework was being negotiated at European level a couple of years ago, was for a cut in CAP. As Taoiseach at the time, Deputy Micheál Martin, pushed back massively, because of the importance of agriculture in our country. It is not the same in other countries in Europe, but it is for us. We were one of the countries to the forefront in pushing that back to seek to get the CAP budget maintained. That was a massive fight and a massive battle and it went to the very wire to maintain it. That is the battle we have when there are 27 member states, when there is competition for those funds. Were we to reopen it, the battle would recommence. I can assure Deputy Browne we would be in a minority in relation to those looking to increase the CAP budget because everybody would be looking to get a bite out of it. We will not have that. However, where we have capacity and where we stand on our own is when we come back here, having negotiated as strongly as we can at European level with the other 27 member states, then we can decide our own national budget and what we bring to the table in relation to national taxpayer funding. We delivered the highest ever increase in the national contribution to CAP, between CAP programmes this time around, with a 50% increase in CAP from the last one. For example, ACRES is up by 50%; I just mentioned the suckler cow scheme; and organics are up by four or five times. That is what this Government has delivered.
I thank the Minister. Gabhaim buíochas.
That is what this Government's commitment is.
4. Deputy Cathal Berry asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when he expects details of a cow reduction scheme to be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35133/23]
I know the Minister is a busy man, as is his colleague, Senator Hackett. I am not sure if he got a chance to read the entire Irish Farmers' Journal this week. There was a very interesting article on page 14. The newspaper was seeking the views of farmers on a potential dairy reduction scheme. My key question to both Ministers is on whether the Government has proposals for any potential dairy reduction scheme. If so, when is it going to be published?
Deputy Berry's question is quite a topical one. It is one that is coming up quite a bit at the moment and getting a lot of discussion as well. He is right that it was covered in the Irish Farmers' Journal last week and it has been raised at many of the meetings I have been having with farm organisations in recent weeks too.
I want to be clear that no decision has been taken by the Government to proceed with such a scheme. There has been no such Government decision, and no Exchequer funding provision is currently in place for such a scheme either. I have repeatedly stated that no farmer will be forced to reduce livestock numbers as part of the climate action plan process. I want to be very clear in saying the same thing here again this morning.
I established the Food Vision beef and sheep group, as well as the Food Vision dairy group last year to advance the actions for the beef and sheep and also the dairy sectors identified in the Food Vision 2030 strategy, as well as taking into account requirements for the sector to contribute to achieving the targets set for agriculture emissions in the climate action plan.
The first priority for both groups was to chart a pathway to achieving the legally binding target of a 25% reduction by 2030. Both the beef and sheep as well as the dairy groups submitted reports to me at the end of last year, which have been published. Those reports identified the measures that could contribute to reducing emissions. Since the reports were published, I have stated that owing to the serious concern expressed by the farming organisations on the proposals for voluntary reduction schemes, which would have provided a payment for those who were in position to reduce their herd or exit beef farming entirely, such schemes in relation to the beef and suckler sector are off the table. Farming organisations said they were not in favour of it, and they were adamant on that. I want to work in partnership with farmers. I said: "Fair enough. It is off the table. That will not happen."
A key recommendation in relation to the Food Vision dairy group was to explore and take forward a voluntary reduction scheme for the dairy herd. In contrast to the beef and sheep sector, the Food Vision dairy group containing the farm organisations recommended that we should explore the capacity for such a scheme to play a role. At the moment, I am engaging and consulting further with the Food Vision dairy group as to what that might look like before I make any further decision on it.
I thank the Minister for that very useful response. I very much accept his views in regard to the beef sector. Some of the responses were quite interesting. Some 80% of the respondents to the survey by the Irish Farmers' Journal said they want nothing to do with a dairy reduction scheme. We can understand why; it is a very emotive issue. They have invested in their own technology and they do not see why the most efficient farmers in the world here in Ireland should be replaced by less efficient farmers elsewhere on the planet. However, there were 20% of respondents who would consider looking at such a scheme. It might suit them from a health point of view. Some of the farmers are moving on in age; they are not getting any younger. They might not have a successor lined up for the farm either. There is an opportunity here for a properly constructed scheme, which could facilitate farmers who want to exit the sector without damaging the viability and livelihood of family farmers who wish to remain inside that sector and to keep farming, as they have been doing for generations. There is a small bit of opportunity here for a scheme if it is properly constructed.
I think Deputy Berry explains it very well. As Minister, it has been my approach, and it will continue to be my approach, to work with farmers with whom we share this challenge. We all have to work together to meet the challenge. We are doing that and that will continue.
On the suckler and the beef sectors, farm organisations were adamant that there should be no scheme for them, so I said: "Grand, there will be none." Most of the calls and queries I got after that were from suckler farmers wondering why there is not a scheme. They said that if a scheme was voluntary, why would anybody prevent somebody wanting to do something voluntary. That is the mix of views that were there. The farm organisations were adamant that there should not be one. I want to back the suckler sector in every way I can. As I explained earlier, I have increased the payments from €90 per cow to €150 per cow. That is a reflection of how I am backing the sector.
Likewise, in regard to a dairy reduction scheme, which the farm organisations that are members of the Food Vision group have said we should explore, I am exploring that further with them by asking them for further detail on what exactly it would look like were it to happen before I would make any consideration on that or, indeed, discuss it with Government colleagues.
I totally accept the Minister's bona fides in that regard. For me, priority number one must be the technology pathway. The Minister announced yesterday his plan to increase clover, reduce fertiliser use and to have better feeds to reduce methane, among other measures. There is an option here, and I am glad the Minister is exploring it and doing it from a partnership perspective.
What is very obvious from the article is that there should be three criteria. I am glad the Minister clarified one, which is that it should be voluntary. Second, it should be properly resourced. The third criterion is that it should only be done following full and proper consultation with farming organisations. The Minister has clarified those points this morning. I am in favour of exploring this option hand in hand with the farming associations.
It is a viable option and worth considering, but only if it is done voluntarily and is properly resourced.
To give absolute reassurance to Deputy Berry, everything will be voluntary. It is about providing options to farmers, voluntary options, and ones that will pay farmers. That will help us collectively to meet the challenge of reducing emissions over the coming decade. That is something I am confident we will do, and that is the approach we have taken so far and will continue to take.
Where I am with a potential dairy reduction scheme is that the dairy vision group, comprising all stakeholders in the sector as well as farm representative organisations, has recommended that it should be explored. I have come back to them to say they should come back to me further with what exactly they are talking about here, what it would look like, what exactly it is they are saying we should explore and what it should look like. Once they come back with that, I will consider the matter further. Again, we will be doing it very much by working closely with farm representatives and all stakeholders, but particularly important in this is the farmer organisations. To emphasise, whenever they said they did not want it on the beef side, I very quickly said there would be none. I was absolutely clear that there would not be any. That marries very well with my own approach of backing the beef sector. I continue to engage with them in regard to the dairy vision group considerations in this matter.
5. Deputy Carol Nolan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to outline the discussions or engagements he has had with farmer representative bodies with respect to the proposed changes to nitrates limits for derogation farmers from the period 1 January 2023 to date; his response to concerns that such changes will inevitably lead to a reduction in herd numbers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34244/23]
Will the Minister outline the discussions and engagements he has had with farming organisations with respect to proposed changes to nitrates limits for derogation farmers from the period 1 January 2023 to date? There are concerns this will inevitably lead to a reduction in herd numbers. At least 6,900 derogation farmers are affected. Assurances to date from the Government have not alleviated the serious concerns and anxieties of these derogation farmers.
I thank Deputy Nolan for the question. Last year Ireland secured renewal of our nitrates derogation covering the period 2022 to 2025. As part of that approval, the European Commission attached increased conditionality to the derogation in the granting of it, including a requirement that we would conduct a two-year water quality review. Its implementing decision states that where water quality is poor or where worsening trends occur over the period 2021 to 2022, the maximum stocking rate must reduce from 250 kg of organic nitrogen livestock manure per hectare to 220 kg from January 2024.
Affected farmers in that instance would have three choices to bring their stocking rate in line with their new lower limit, if they were farming at a rate between 220 kg and 250 kg. The three options would be obtaining more land, exporting nutrients to other farms, or reducing livestock numbers. That is something that farmers in that situation will have to look at to adjust, if they are in that range. The Department has had a number of meetings with farm organisations and industry representatives on this topic this year. I am very aware of the pressure and the concern farmers have in this regard. Discussions with stakeholders on this commenced in spring of last year. Since then I, along with officials, have worked to communicate the risks associated with this conditionality that was attached to our derogation and the need for us as a country to show significant improvements in water quality if we are to maintain our nitrates derogation in the long term. The Government very much recognises that farmers have made significant efforts and continue to do so to address water quality. The challenge for us all is that the level of nutrients in many of our water courses remains too high, as evidenced by the reports from the Environment Protection Agency, EPA.
I have established the agriculture water quality working group with all farm representatives on it so that we can work together on this issue in the short term to try to achieve flexibilities with regard to the mid-term review, and in the more medium term to ensure we retain and get a renewal of our nitrates derogation post 2025.
I thank the Minister. I see little point in being deliberately adversarial on this point. I acknowledge the Minister has agreed with the European Commission to an interim review of the nitrates action programme 2023. This still means we would default to a maximum limit under the derogation, as the Minister pointed out, of 220 kg, and that is down from 250 kg, from January 2024. We know from the research conducted by Teagasc that one of the reasons Ireland's nitrates derogation is in the firing line is because of recent declines in water quality. That makes it more difficult to secure future derogations. As the IFA and others have pointed out, this interim review will only be based on comparing water quality between 2021 and 2022. I have met the IFA and discussed this very point. Will the Minister accept this is flawed, since measures coming into place in 2022 and 2023 will not have had a chance to improve water quality? Clearly there is a recognition that farmers need additional time. The Minister mentioned a working group. Will he support the IFA and other farming organisations in seeking a review from the Commission to revisit this? We need to give them more flexibility and more time.
We are working together to try to seek extra time. I have brought everyone in the sector into that working group. It is the first time there has ever been a working group on this issue, so we can pool ideas and pool resources for what is a real challenge on maintaining our derogation. My team has already engaged with the Commission with regard to flexibilities. We will engage further over the course of this month. There will also be a meeting of that working group shortly to get ideas from all of the farmer representative organisations as to how we can actually put together the case that will give us the best chance of getting those flexibilities. In the medium term, the role of that working group is to make sure we make improvements in water quality over the next two to three years that give us the platform to have our nitrates derogation renewed.
The Deputy makes the fair point that some of the increased steps that were taken over the past year to 18 months to two years to improve water quality will take a little bit of time to show results. However, the challenge at European level is that we have had a derogation for a long time, and over the time we have had that derogation, our water quality has not actually been improving. The level of nitrogen we have been using has not been reducing. Therefore getting that derogation from other member states against that backdrop becomes challenging when that is the background. However, it speaks to the need to double down in regard to everybody working together to improve water quality as we step forward.
I thank the Minister. Engagement is one thing but it has to be made clear to the European Commission by the Minister, as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and by the Irish MEPs that farmers need more time and more flexibility. There has to be fairness. In regard to water quality, I notice that the finger is always pointed at farmers. In my constituency I have seen instances where there has been no farming activity and where it has been down to poor sewerage systems and where Irish Water has actually been responsible for some instances. I do not believe it is right to penalise farmers on the water quality issue, which is obviously related to this issue. I believe the Government needs to be fair about this. I am sure the Minister will agree, as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, that farmers are not to blame all of the time and that there is a bigger picture here in terms of water quality. They should not be penalised, therefore. We have to make a case to the European Commission. Our farming is important to our economy and to our local economy and needs to be defended and protected. Farmers cannot be made scapegoats.
Yes, multiple issues impact water quality, and certainly wastewater from towns, villages and sewage are a key part of that, mainly contributing to the phosphorus side. The biggest challenge from the nitrates side comes from agriculture. That will be recognised by all. While we have to address the phosphorus side and the sewage side, which is a real problem, we also have to address the nitrates side in terms of agriculture.
To be clear, it is not about saying the Minister needs to thump the table with the Commission or take a hard line, and if the Minister would just do that, then we would keep our derogation. This is not something that is within our gift. We have to go out there and we are, and we will seek to get this. However, it is wrong for anyone to be complacent or believe it is simply about the Government banging the table enough in order that we will continue to get it. The reality is we have a challenge in that we have not delivered over the past ten years in relation to improving water quality or in relation to meeting the targets under the nitrates directive. That has put us in a challenging situation at the moment. We now have to work together to make sure we reverse those trends. We will work together to make sure of that. The reality is that if we do not, then come 2024 and 2025, securing the derogation again will become a big challenge.
