Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Simon Coveney has defended Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue over his handling of the European Commission’s decision on Ireland’s nitrates derogation.
Minister McConalogue has faced criticism from both farm organisations and politicians for a stance his critics have deemed as definite and final with relation to the derogation, a stance they say is unwarranted.
He announced earlier this month that the commission would not renegotiate any part of the Ireland’s nitrates derogation. This means that the derogation will be reduced from 250kg of organic nitrogen (N) per hectare to 220kg N/ha in large parts of the country (maximum allowance of organic N without as derogation is 170 kg/ha).
However, there has been criticism directed towards the minister on the apparent basis that, in communicating the commission’s decision, he overlooked areas in which flexibility may be possible to offset the impact of the derogation reduction.
In response to a question from Agriland at the Fine Gael think-in on Friday (September 15), Minister Coveney defended his Fianna Fáil cabinet colleague, saying that retaining any sort of nitrates derogation in the future was Minister McConalogue’s main concern.
Minister Coveney said: “I support what Minister McConalogue is trying to do here, he’s trying to maintain a good relationship with the European Commission, in terms of the medium-term and long-term challenge we have here, which is holding on to the derogation post-2025.
“We want to hold on to that and I think Minister McConalogue is working hard on that,” Minister Coveney added.
Coveney’s comments came after himself, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, and Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, met with a delegation from the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), which had held a protest outside the Fine Gael think-in.
At that meeting, the Taoiseach agreed to write to the European Commissioner for Environment Virginijus Sinkevicius to invite him to Ireland to meet with agri-sector stakeholders on the derogation issue.
This was interpreted by the IFA as the Taoiseach taking an approach that was at odds with his agriculture minister, with Minister McConalogue saying at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine on Friday morning that he will not go back to Brussels to discuss the decision on Ireland’s nitrates derogation.
Instead, he highlighted the need for a clear focus on actions that will deliver improvements in water quality so Ireland has a “strong hand” to play in renewing the derogation in 2025.
Commenting on the meeting between the Fine Gael delegation and the IFA representatives, Minister Coveney said: “We had a good meeting today with the IFA. I think we went through, in some detail, their concerns, and I hope that the next step now will be to invite the commissioner to come to Ireland and continue that discussion with him.
“That would be a useful next step. Certainly, I think the farm leadership would like to have a face-to-face meeting [with the commissioner] to be able to talk about the ideas and flexibilities they would like to see explored.”
It is understood that the Fine Gael delegation had been in touch with Minister McConalogue after the meeting with the IFA to communicate to him the Taoiseach’s decision to write to the commissioner.
That move by the Taoiseach was also welcomed by Fine Gael Senator Tim Lombard, who told Agriland at the think-in (which he attended later in the day due to the meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee): “This is about making sure that we get the commissioner…on the island of Ireland to make sure he sees what we do on this island.
“We graze cows 305 days of the year, we have a unique ecosystem that is nowhere in Europe, and we’re trying to get that message across, that what we do here is realistically the most efficient way of producing food in the globe,” Lombard added.
The committee meeting on Friday morning heard from Minister McConalogue on the nitrates issue.
Afterwards, Lombard said that the meeting provided clarity on a number of areas, including on the map used to highlight what areas are set to see a reduction in derogation.