Madam, - Patricia McKenna, MEP, is to be commended on her letter of February 25th concerning the IFA and its resistance to the EU nitrates directives.
Most farmers do not pollute and will not have problems with these directives.
The serious decline in our water quality in rural Ireland is mostly caused by the intensive farming industry, which, unlike other industries, has not been subject to proper planning control and inspection.
In the Lough Sheelin catchment area there are over 14 intensive pig producing units, containing over 120,000 pigs. This is an enormous number of animals in a small area, the equivalent of the City of Galway, on the shores of the lake spreading effluent on the surrounding lands.
Consequently the people in the catchment area, including farmers, have serious drinking water problems, constant smells from slurry spreading, and Lough Sheelin is dying as "a world famous wild trout fishery".
How has this been allowed to happen? Most pig units were built without planning permission; retention was sought and granted by the local authority. This haphazard procedure still goes on despite the fact that pollution in the catchment area has been a well recorded problem for decades.
Pollution control and treatment must be a necessary cost for producers in a profit making business. In other words the polluter must pay.
The EU Commission has taken legal action against Ireland for not implementing the nitrates directives. In all probability Ireland will be fined - who will pay this fine? Not the polluters or the IFA. The ordinary taxpayers will pay, and still we will not have clean water. - Yours, etc.,
PAUL BURKE-KENNEDY, Crover, Mount Nugent, Co Cavan.