Independent TD and MEP Marian Harkin has strongly refuted the accusation of Fianna Fail Senator Eamon Scanlon that she was scaremongering about he EU Nitrates Directive and accused him of having a typical Fianna Fail strategy to divert attention from their huge incompetence in landing Irish farming in difficulties which could have been avoided.

“Fianna Fail has been in power for most of the fifteen years during which a Nitrates Directive, which protected Ireland’s water quality and did not destroy commercial farming, could have been agreed”, she said.  However Fianna Fail had been a contemptuous of the EU Directive and because of this had ensured that negotiation of any derogation would be extremely difficult, she said.  This was reflected in the admission by Minister for the Environment Dick Roche that the inept way in which the Nitrates Directive had been handled left Ireland with very little sympathy in Brussels, she said.

This contrasted with a country like Holland which had a far more serious situation to address in relation to water quality but had accepted their responsibilities as members of the EU and secured a satisfactory arrangement for their farmers, she said.

“It is absolutely absurd that we in Ireland with a better water quality than Holland are, as a result of successive Fianna Fail Ministers’ dereliction, having substantially greater difficulty than the Dutch in achieving balanced implementation of the Nitrates Directive”,  Marian Harkin said.

The IFA felt so strongly at how badly the Fianna Fail led Government had engaged in the Nitrates negotiations that they had withdrawn from the Partnership process, she said.  “Is Senator Scanlon accusing the IFA of scaremongering – is everybody except Fianna Fail out of step on an issue which poses huge economic problems for farmers and for rural Ireland”, Independent TD and MEP Marian Harkin said.