Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture Martin Heydon and Sinn Féin agriculture spokesperson Martin Kenny clashed on the future of the nitrates derogation on day one of the National Ploughing Championships.

Minister Heydon said he was “shocked” at comments made by Kenny on the derogation and accused him of waving the white flag on Ireland’s derogation.

“I don’t believe that at all. Farmers are taking steps on water quality, Government are supporting them in those efforts and we can turn the trend on water quality the same way we’ve done with emissions," Minister Heydon said on a political panel on the Irish Farmers Journal stand.

In response, Kenny said that the derogation will not be there forever and that it’s “fool-hardy” to think that it will be.

“It’s on the way out at some point and we of course need to retain it as long as we possibly can. But while we retain it, we need to be investing in farms and investing in a future where we don’t have to depend on that type of derogation system to come into play,” he said.

Derogation D-day

The Sligo-Leitrim TD said that a D-day will come for the derogation, but that he wasn’t raising the white flag on the issue.

“We need to be realistic and recognise that in the future we will not always have a derogation,” he said.

Minister Heydon said that he was really concerned about Kenny’s comments. “Once we turn the corner on our water quality trends, I absolutely believe we will get it,” he said, adding that Kenny had a lack of ambition for rural Ireland.

Kenny retorted that his ambition for rural Ireland was to make the family farm viable.

“Many of the family farms we see out there are unviable, their children don’t want to go into farming and their parents won’t encourage them into it,” he said.

“I guarantee you that dropping everyone back to 170kg N/ha and losing the derogation is one way of making a lot of farms unviable,” Minister Heydon responded.