During the week, the news of the derogation was welcome, but the real work starts now. Unfortunately, unelected bureaucrats in Europe have put in a proviso, because of the habitats directive, that over the coming years, what a cow does in a field and the impact of this on the Barrow, Nore, Suir, Blackwater, Owenriff or whatever other river will have to be screened. This will cost the State millions of euro. I do not know if there will be enough scientists to do all of this in the timeline. There is a bigger and wider problem of flooding that the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, will have seen. The problem is that of objections and how the habitats directive is being used to block people. We see difficulties now if people try to extend a port or an airport, build a road or build a house. I have seen young people in my area who are 40 miles from Lough Corrib, but because the Sinking River goes into the River Clare and goes on to Lough Corrib, people building a house in a rural place have to spend €2,500 in case it may have an impact on the site. A few years ago in the Minister of State, Deputy Harkin's constituency, a snail that did not exist held up work on Lough Talt by Irish Water to provide water to 9,000 people or 10,000 people in the area.

This cannot continue. It is blocking the Government and tying its hands. The Government has dealt with this on Lough Funshinagh as well. The Government, councils and private investors trying to make progress, be it building houses, building roads or whatever infrastructure, are all being blocked. This legislation started off in 1997, but the interpretation being used by the European Court of Justice, ECJ, kangaroo court, as I would call it, of the habitats directive, aided and abetted by NGOs funded by the State, is trying to wrap the State up in knots. It cannot continue. I commend the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan. Yesterday in Brussels, he spoke about how the ECJ interpretation of immigration and so on was becoming a problem. If the Government wants to make progress on housing, roads or all the major infrastructural projects, then Ministers in the Council of Ministers in Europe will have to get together. We are well able to come in here at times, and Europe will send over more legislation on top of what we have already on whichever item we are talking about.

You should conclude, Deputy.

Europe is always able to add more but no one ever asks whether a mistake was made or whether the ECJ's interpretation has gone too far.

You should conclude, Deputy Fitzmaurice.

Are we now prioritising a snail over people being able to drink water, live in a house, have a port, have an airport or farm their land?

Thanks, Deputy Fitzmaurice. We will now have a reply from the Minister.

At the moment, we are starting on the derogation for farmers but what will happen?

Deputy Fitzmaurice, please resume you seat.

They will drive it down to the ordinary small farmer in this country. Thank you, Chair.

There is no point in pointing the finger at me.

I am not pointing-----

You had a time slot. Respect it.

In his intervention, Deputy Fitzmaurice mentioned Lough Funshinagh in County Roscommon. I know that area intimately, unfortunately for all of the wrong reasons. The poor misfortunate people there had to put up with years of torture, for want of a better word, because an attempt by the Office of Public Works and Roscommon County Council to relieve flooding was held up and objected to. As Deputy Fitzmaurice referenced, the habitats directive was the principal instrument. The Minister of State, Deputy Moran, has made huge progress in this area. This will be one of the first Christmases that the people there will at least have pumps running and know that the terrible situation is not going to happen to them on Christmas Day again.

I agree with the Deputy's wider point about EU simplification, and so does the President of the European Commission. One of the hallmarks of the President of the European Commission's contribution to the state of the Union address was the need for the Union to look at EU simplification. I do not believe that it was ever intended that an instrument originally designed to protect the habitats of flora and fauna would be used as an instrument or a method to allow sewage to flow through people's houses, regardless of the town or village where the flood relief scheme was to take place and regardless of whether there was potable water. We all remember back in the 1990s or the early 2000s the situation with the Galway city water scheme. Galway City Council was the first agent of the State to use imperative reasons of overriding public interest, IROPI. The Deputy will know exactly what I am talking about. When there is an overriding need for public good, we can, as he said, screen out things that would otherwise not be looked favourably upon in an application. However, that is a long and arduous process and it can be appealed.

I agree with the Deputy about our infrastructure, whether it is in the building of a road or a railway or the laying of a water main, such as the one being discussed from north of Limerick to Dublin. All of these things are being objected to by people for spurious reasons, in many cases. The Deputy knows as well as I do that, as soon as someone mentions the Aarhus Convention, they have carte blanche to go the whole way to the Supreme Court. Many people here do not agree with my analysis or the Deputy's, and that is another problem. If legislation was brought before the Dáil tomorrow in terms of harmonising or simplifying Ireland's interpretation of the habitats directive, I am not so sure that everybody who claims to be on the same side as us would all of a sudden jump to that. Certainly, when it comes to the European institutions, we definitely know that is not the case.

In general, the Deputy's point about EU simplification is one that the Minister for agriculture, the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, others and I entirely agree with.

I welcome what the Minister has said but this is the reality so far. Unfortunately, I have lived through a review of the habitat's directive. I was invited to go to a meeting. To be honest about it, I would have been better going home to count the cattle, because I wasted a day doing a review of the habitats directive. You were only allowed to speak for a few minutes and after that it was, "Good luck and good night" and nothing ever came of it. I did that a few years ago after being asked to do it.

The sad part of the ECJ needs to be looked at. If I, as a person with knowledge of the matter, were asked to give evidence of the background to something, I would not even be allowed to put in the paperwork towards it when Ireland is being taken on. The Minister talked about all the different places. It is holding jobs up for six, seven or eight years. I understand that this is the first normal winter in Lough Funshinagh and I welcome that. The problem for housing and all the different projects in the country is that we are now at a stage where it is seven or eight years and we are going around in circles. This is aided and abetted by NGOs that the Government is funding. That is the reality of it. Look at the case that is going on at the moment regarding the derogation, aided and abetted by NGOs. We have to decide whether to pull the plug on their funding as well as going to Europe to explain that people have to live and that we have to change this legislation for the betterment of people.

I omitted to say in my original response that I think the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, was not referring to the ECJ during the week but to the European Court of Human Rights, but I know the point Deputy Fitzmaurice is making, which is the same thing. It is about EU simplification. Whether it is in relation to potable water or being able to flush the toilet, it is taking too long. It is not down to a shortage of money. Anyone would tell you that, in most cases, the delivery of infrastructure now has built into it substantial legal fees. An awful lot of the legal fees are being absorbed by cases being contested in the courts over environmental regulations. Like the Deputy, I do not believe that those regulations were ever designed to be interpreted in such a fashion as to prevent people from getting access to potable water. If that is the case, it is time to go back and look at this again.

With regard to what the Deputy said about the nitrates directive, this is a good week in terms of what the Minister for agriculture has achieved. It is about EU simplification and ensuring a common-sense approach, working with farmers and people who know and love the land and who know their animals better than anybody, so that they can have a manageable way to do this. They are not people who will go out and degrade or destroy the environment. They want to work with the environment because it is what they derive their income from.