The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) believes the future of many family dairy farms and the wider dairy sector is at risk due to new prosposals to secure Ireland's nitrates derogation.

The European Commission has told Ireland it “must demonstrate compliance” with the Habitats Directive when granting farmers a nitrates derogation.

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon and his officials are currently working on an "outline approach" as part of Ireland's efforts to extend the nitrates derogation beyond 2025.

The proposal is to take a catchments approach to the Habitats Directive under the nitrates derogation.

This means that Appropriate Assessments (AAs) would be carried out by experts in 46 catchment areas prior to a derogation being granted.

However, the president of the ICMSA Denis Drennan had said that the new Appropriate Assessment process could be “the straw that breaks the back of Irish dairying”.

He said that it is "blatantly unfair" that the 7,000 farmers farming under derogation "are being blamed almost exclusively for perceived decline water quality".

He said that as data on water quality showed signs of improvement, the "goalposts had moved". and these farmers were now to be asked to not only meet water quality regulations but also the conditions of the Habitats Directive.

He added that most of these farmers do not farm designated lands.

Drennan claimed that the reason why some habitats are not at the required standards is "the complete failure of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to implement the regulations properly over nearly 30 years".

“Now, they want 7,000 farmers to pay the price for their incompetence and, be very clear, no Member State in the EU is meeting the requirements of the Habitats Directive.

"Will those operations have to do an AA and if there is a problem, will they be asked to cut back

"Everyone knows the answers and, yet again, there is one draconian rule for farm families and other small businesses and another ‘work away and expand’ rule for state agencies," he said.

The ICMSA president said that this "brutally unfair double-standard is happening under the eyes of rural TDs".

Drennan criticised "the complete lack of respect shown to farmers by this late introduction of the Habitats Directive into the process".

He said that trust in the process was not helped by the fact that the Agriculture Water Quality Group did not meet for almost four months "on what is obviously such a critical subject for the future of the Irish dairy sector and farming in general".

Based on ICMSA’s current understanding, Drennan said that some farmers "who have to this point done everything asked of them will end up losing their derogation".

"It is absolutely horrendous that at this late stage, a whole new set of protocols and rules are to be foisted on farmers - some of whom will lose their derogation and be put out of business even though they may not be the problem," he said.

The ICMSA president noted that "farmers are fully supportive of environmental protection and had made proven strides on water quality".

He described the decision to now introduce assessments as "an absolute kick in the teeth to the thousands of farmers concerned who will be forced to conclude that the minister is failing on this matter at present".

Drennan called for "an immediate and full impact analysis of the proposed process, the full details of how the department intend to implement the process and how it will work at farm level".

He said that those details must be supplied before anything is submitted to the EU Commission.