An independent TD has claimed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is demonising farmers and failing to recognise their good environmental practices.
The comments come after the EPA called on local authorities to increase the number of farm inspections and enforcement activity.
In a report on the performance of councils in environmental enforcement published today (Tuesday, November 15), the EPA said that overall water quality is in decline and agriculture continues to have a significant impact.
Local authorities in counties Cork, Kilkenny and Meath were praised for an “excellent” level of farm inspections.
However, councils in Clare, Cork City, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Mayo, Offaly, South Dublin and Sligo were given a “limited rating” due to low inspection levels and subsequent follow-up and enforcement actions.
Farmers
Responding to the report, independent TD Carol Nolan has said that the EPA needs to “back off” from farmers and acknowledge the environmental objectives being achieved on holdings across the country.
The Laois-Offaly representative claimed that the report was “likely to further demonise the perception of farm families as environmental laggards” when nothing could be further from the truth.
“I am sick and tired of agencies like the EPA pouring out this toxic perception of farmers when it comes to environmental ambition,” she said.
“Where is the sense of proportion or balance?
“The EPA is now asking for increased inspections and higher levels of enforcement; as if farmers were routinely engaged in bad environmental practices and were just getting away with it because of a lax regime.
“Farmers are among the most highly regulated people of any profession. Indeed the regulatory burden of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) programme makes that explicitly clear,” the TD continued.
“It is beyond time that farmers were supported and not shoved to the ground regardless of how much effort and ambition they display in terms of good environmental practices,” Nolan concluded.