The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has called on a new Cabinet committee to ensure that all sectors play their part when it comes to water quality.
The chair of the association’s environment committee, John Murphy, said that he was “encouraged by the strong commitment” in the programme for government to retain Ireland’s derogation.
Given Ireland’s unique grass-based production model, the new government has pledged to work with farmers, industry, state agencies, and local authorities to develop evidence-based solutions to assist farmers in improving water quality.
Water quality
As part of the programme there is a commitment to establish a Cabinet committee on water quality which will be chaired by the Taoiseach.
Murphy said this committee is “an extremely important forum to co-ordinate water quality improvements across all sectors and ensure a whole-of-government approach”.
He added that this “is essential if Ireland is to achieve its targets”.
“The ‘across all sectors’ approach’ is really important to farmers who are concerned that the scale of ambition by the State to address non-compliance in wastewater treatment plants does not match the scale of ambition and effort in the agriculture sector to address agricultural pressures on water quality,” he said.
Murphy said that farmers are worried that the slow progress by the State to rectify non-compliance in wastewater treatment plants will have serious repercussions when it comes to “retaining the derogation and a workable Nitrates Action Programme”.
Nitrogen
The IFA Environment Committee chair noted there had been “some encouraging signs” from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) early insight report, which was published in December.
The report showed that in a representative sample of waterbodies, the nitrogen (N) concentrations nationally reduced in the first half of 2024 relative to other years, and that they are at their lowest since 2016.
“This is a very positive sign, and hopefully shows that the measures, both regulatory and voluntary, adopted by farmers are starting to deliver improvement in water quality,” he said.
Murphy said it is vital that all farmers use the tools and advice available to adopt measures to improve water quality.
“The newly launched 60% grant aid for nutrient storage investments under TAMS 3 is another very important component of the plan to support farmers to invest and create additional storage capacity to optimise nutrient management.
“The next piece of the jigsaw is the immediate introduction of an exempted development threshold for stand-alone nutrient storage units, now that the Planning and Development Act has been passed,” he said.