Ireland's lax approach to inspecting farms and enforcing rules

The EU Nitrates Committee meets on Tuesday and may extend Ireland's nitrates derogation by up to three years. At the same time we need to protect or restore water quality on a national scale writes ecologist Pádraic Fogarty

Pádraic Fogarty: "The impression that water quality is improving and that farmers simply need more time for measures which have been adopted to take effect is widespread. However, this is not supported by any data." Pictures: EPA Ireland 

It is not only farmyard slurry that is being spread widely across the country these days. When it comes to the debate about our water quality and the retention of Ireland’s nitrates derogation, many politicians and farm leaders seem equally content to hose misinformation onto the field of public opinion with abandon.

Take MEP Cynthia Ní Mhurchú who insisted that water quality improvements are underway and that “since 2019, we have seen a reduction in total nitrogen load in our rivers by a quarter”.

Ní Mhurchú managed to cherrypick two data points from a 2024 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report which indeed showed the fall in nitrogen she described. However, had she compared the 2024 number to 2016 (which is the range shown on the chart in the report) it would have shown little change, which itself may not be a bad result, except that the latest issue of the report from 2025, shows that nitrate levels have jumped back up again and are 16% above 2024 levels.

The impression that water quality is improving and that farmers simply need more time for measures which have been adopted to take effect is widespread. However, this is not supported by any data. In their most recent national assessment of water quality, covering the 2019-2024 period, the EPA found that the percentage of water bodies in ‘satisfactory ecological health’ was 52%, “a decline from the previous assessment when 54% were satisfactory”.

Despite some improvements, the report states, “overall, there has been a net decline in our water quality” adding that “it is reasonable to state that the programme of measures is not yet working to protect or restore water quality on a national scale”.

Ciaran Mullooly, another MEP, went on Newstalk radio to exhort listeners to “deal with some of the facts”, saying that “Cork’s water quality, specifically in the catchment areas where intensive dairy farming is taking place, is rated as excellent by the EPA”, and that water in the Munster Blackwater specifically was “excellent”.

The EPA does not have an ‘excellent’ water category. Satisfactory status is either ‘good’ or ‘high’. In the case of the Munster Blackwater, a glance at the latest assessment shows that the entirety of the estuary and the freshwater portion of the river nearly as far as Fermoy, is polluted: far from excellent. Only 11% of the river is ‘high status’, which would be excellent, while 58% is ‘good’, meaning nearly a third of the river is failing to meet required standards.

Mullooly might have had a point if he was trying to say that the problem in our waterways is not all down to derogation farms, which is true, but in giving the impression that the main deterioration is on the east coast, “in areas where we have considerable pressure with wastewater” he was egregiously misleading listeners.

It is another common trope that sewage from wastewater treatment plants is a bigger problem than agriculture. A comment by a farmer on social media last month that “waste water treatment plants and septic tanks have a lot to answer for” and that “we’re making far more progress than wastewater treatment plants” reflects commonly held beliefs.

 

According to the EPA there are more than 1,000 wastewater treatment plants across the country although, disgracefully, there are still 15 towns and villages in Ireland where raw sewage is released with no treatment at all while many are not meeting standards of effluent treatment. Nevertheless, the EPA’s assessment of urban wastewater treatment for 2024, states that “the volume of raw sewage discharged daily has more than halved since the start of 2024”. The EPA has been critical of Uisce Éireann, which operates this infrastructure, for failing to prioritise needed works and much needs to be done by the utility to meet standards.

Yet, the scale of the difference between the impact of wastewater and agriculture is poorly appreciated. According to Ireland’s Water Action Plan from 2024, there are 1,659 water bodies ‘at risk’ of not meeting water quality objectives. Agriculture is a ‘significant pressure’ at 1,023 of these, nearly two thirds of the total, and up from 780 on the previous plan period. Wastewater is a pressure on only 197 (down from 293) and septic tanks 188 (up from 166).

A 2021 assessment of the 12 river catchments, all in the south and east of the country, where a reduction in nitrogen concentrations is needed, found that only one, the Tolka in Dublin, was wastewater the source of a significant proportion of the nitrogen.

Ireland has a lax approach to inspecting farms and enforcing rules but on RTÉ in November Pat O’Toole political correspondent for the Irish Farmers’ Journal, pointed out that farmers in derogation are subjected to “a much higher level of scrutiny” and that “farmers have to adhere to these regulations… it’s very strictly enforced”. It is true that there are additional rules for farmers in derogation however there is no evidence that rules are ‘strictly enforced’.

In December of last year the EPA warned that farm inspection rates were “far below” what is needed to drive compliance and improve water quality. The National Agricultural Inspection Programme for 2024 found that although there had been an increase in the number of inspections compared to 2023, only nine local authorities met inspection targets, with a substantial 42 per cent of farms failing. These inspections are for the protection of water quality and include, but are not exclusive to, derogation farms.

Since 2022, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, separately undertake inspections in at least 10% of derogation farms, meaning most derogation farms have never had this derogation-specific inspection.

The ignoring of facts, the sidelining of scientists and the breezy assertions, repeated ad nauseum, that Irish agriculture is ‘sustainable’ are largely responsible for the mess Irish farming finds itself in. Honesty alone will not dig us out of the hole, but it would be a start.