This article is from page 10 of the 2006-02-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 10 JPG
THE Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dick Roche (FF), received a hostile reception from a group of Clare farmers when he visited the Temple Gate Hotel in Ennis last Friday.
Some 50 farmers door-stepped the Minister outside the hotel and challenged him on the implications for farming in the county if the new Nitrates Directive is enforced.
“If it comes in, it will destroy the very fabric of rural life, there are still 200,000 jobs dependent on farming in rural Ireland,” said Clare IFA President, Seamus Murphy. “It will lead to massive de-stocking, put fulltime farmers out of business and put a huge amount of pressure on the whole sector.”
The controversial regulations were introduced before Christmas and limited the amount of nitrates and phosphates that can be used on farm land. It has prompted an unprecedented response from farming organisations and has even seen the IFA boycott Teagasc over its role in introducing the regulations.
“We feel that this legislation is totally over the top,” said Clare farming activist, Jim Enright. “As farmers we are custodians of the environment and we know what is good for it more than some civil servant in Dublin.”
Speaking outside the Temple Gate, Minister Roche defended his position to the farmers.
“The directive is the law and we have broken that law for 13 years,” said the Minister. “One of the reasons we are in a difficult position here is that we haven’t put in place a nitrates action programme.
“We are the last country in Europe to do it, even the 10 new member states have their programmes in place, so what we have done is put ourselves up a cul-de-sac. If we continue as we are, we will have daily fines and disruption on our farm payments.”
Mr Murphy said that the large turnout showed the level of anger that Clare farmers had with the current directives.
“It just goes to show you how committed these farmers are,” he said. “There are a lot of cattle in Clare who will be having a late breakfast this morning. But if this goes through, there will be no feed for them at all.
“Wherever Dick Roche goes, we will be there to meet him, lobbying him as intensely as we can. We won’t go away, we can’t. This is our livelihood.”