Fianna F\u00e1il MEP Barry Cowen has called on the Taoiseach to pursue a better deal for farmers on the nitrates derogation.<\/p>\n
In a rare appearance at the party’s weekly Leinster House meeting Mr Cowen said he had formally written to Miche\u00e1l Martin to communicate his concerns.<\/p>\n
Mr Cowen’s comments come as the party met for the first time since the presidential election result which prompted some TDs to contemplate tabling a motion of no confidence in the party leader.<\/p>\n
Speaking about the nitrates directive Mr Cowen stated that the Government’s approach risks inflicting lasting damage on rural communities.<\/p>\n
He is now seeking a personal meeting with Miche\u00e1l Martin to discuss the matter.<\/p>\n
The MEP also wants the Taoiseach to provide a detailed update on his role in the campaign to retain the derogation.<\/p>\n
He told TDs and Senator that this country was never going to win this through strict science or legal definitions.<\/p>\n
“This was always going to be a political battle, and we needed to fight it as one,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Cowen added that a deal in principle could be announced as early as Friday but warned a deal for the sake of a deal isn’t a victory if it won\u2019t work on the ground.<\/p>\n
“From what I\u2019m hearing, this will be a highly conditional derogation, buried under layers of Appropriate Assessments and ongoing reviews.<\/p>\n
For the majority of the 7,000 farmers involved – who produce 60% of Ireland\u2019s milk output and form the bedrock of so many other facets of our economy – it could become unworkable,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il MEP Barry Cowen has called on the Taoiseach to pursue a better deal for farmers on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-124428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}