Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Cowen has issued a stark warning about the current approach to retain Ireland's nitrates derogation.

The Midlands North-West MEP flew home from Brussels last night (Wednesday, November 5) making a rare appearance in Leinster House to address the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party.

Cowen believes the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and the government are "at serious risk of taking a flawed, short-sighted approach, one that could inflict lasting damage on Irish farming and the rural communities that depend on it".

Derogation

Cowen believes that the government should have challenged the European Commission when it said in June that for Ireland to secure an extension of the nitrates derogation, applications would now also have to comply with the Habitats Directive.

"For me, that stage is exactly when we should have challenged the commission’s premise, not built a compliance plan around it," he told the parliamentary party.

Instead, the MEP said that a Cabinet memo had "effectively locked in the department’s new course - committing Ireland to catchment-based Appropriate Assessments across 46 catchments and 583 sub-catchments".

"This approach carries huge implications for our rural base, in particular. We’re now at real risk of boxing ourselves in behind a legal framework of our own making," he added.

Deal

The MEP said that his sources in Brussels believe "an agreement will be announced before our derogation expires at the end of the year".

"A deal could be announced in principle as early as on Friday when Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall visits Ireland.

"I’ve no doubt the minister and his team have worked hard, but let’s be honest - a deal for the sake of a deal isn’t a victory if it won’t work on the ground.

"For the majority of the 7,000 farmers involved - who produce 60% of Ireland’s milk output and form the bedrock of so many other facets of our economy - it could become unworkable," Cowen said.

"Once this Habitats Directive interpretation is accepted at catchment level, it opens the door for the same logic to be applied to housing, roads, water services - anything that touches land or water," he added.

Cowen said that "before any deal is celebrated, this parliamentary party needs to see it, understand it and scrutinise it".

"A deal for the sake of a deal is no deal at all. We can’t afford to assume that because there’s an agreement, it’s automatically good for Ireland," he said.

Taoiseach

The MEP, who is a member of the European Parliament’s AGRI Committee, has written to Taoiseach Micheál Martin seeking a personal meeting to "discuss the issue in full".

He has also asked the Fianna Fáil leader to provide a "detailed update" to the parliamentary party outlining his efforts and that of DAFM to retain the derogation.

"While I fully support the government’s efforts to retain the derogation, I am deeply concerned that the department’s proposed approach, which accepts this demand from the commission, risks doing long-term damage to Irish agriculture and to the State’s ability to function administratively," the letter stated.

Cowen said that farmers have demonstrated their commitment to improving water quality and environmental outcomes.

"The evidence of progress is there. It is now essential that Ireland advances a political argument in Brussels - one that seeks a three to four-year extension to allow ongoing measures to mature and for improvements to be fully reflected in the scientific data," he wrote.