Dr. Frank O'Mara:

I would like to thank the Chairman and the members of the committee for the invitation to attend the meeting today. I will introduce our team. I am the director of Teagasc, and with me are Mr. Eddie Burgess, specialist advisor to the agricultural catchments programme and Mr. Noel Meehan, manager of the agricultural sustainability support and advisory programme. Water quality and, in particular, minimising the impact of agriculture has been a priority area for Teagasc for many years. We have a large body of water quality research that is largely centred around the agricultural catchments programme, ACP, which started in 2008 and is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. In addition to our core advisory activities which provide general advice on water quality, we have a dedicated agricultural sustainability support and advisory programme, ASSAP, which works with farmers in a free and confidential advisory service to help improve water quality.

The ACP operates in six small agriculturally-dominated catchment areas selected to represent different farming systems and soil types. The support and co-operation of 300 farmers in these catchment areas allows Teagasc to monitor soils, weather, farming practice, ground water and surface water. The programme also evaluates economic performance and agricultural productivity on these farms. By building up this information over the years, we learn how farming influences water quality and how the regulations, namely, the nitrates directive and its derogation, impact on farming. The high resolution monitoring of the ACP, which has been done every ten minutes, continuously since 2008, has given an in-depth understanding of the processes that influence water quality from when it falls as rain on farmland to when it leaves a catchment area in our streams. Teagasc's ACP research contributes significantly to Ireland's annual EU reporting on the nitrates derogation and provides a scientific basis to Teagasc's submission for any review of Ireland's nitrates directive national action programme.

The ASSAP was established as part of the River Basin Management Plan 2018-2021. It is a collaborative programme and is funded by the Department of Housing Local Government and Heritage, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and Dairy industry Ireland, DII. The ASSAP provides a free and confidential advisory service for farmers in the 190 priority areas for action located throughout the country. The aim of the ASSAP is to provide farmers with advice focused on the prevention of contaminant losses to waters with a view to attaining water framework directive water quality targets. The advisory service is provided by Teagasc and the dairy processing co-ops. Currently, Teagasc provides 20 advisers and the dairy processing co-ops provide 13 advisers. The dairy processing co-ops have committed to providing an additional five advisers to the programme in 2022. The ASSAP is designed to work closely with farmers in each priority area for action, PAA. The local authority waters programme, LAWPRO, provides the science that identifies what is impacting water quality - nutrients, sediment, pesticides, pathogens and toxic substances - and where this occurs in each PAA. The ASSAP advisers then contact the relevant farmers and offer to visit and assess the farm for any issues that may be impacting water quality. Advisers assess the farm across three areas: farmyard management and practices; land management, including critical source areas, CSAs; and nutrient management practices. At the end of the visit the adviser and farmer will agree on where the farmer should focus improvements or actions, and identify the right measure in the right place to help prevent contaminants from entering water. To date, the ASSAP programme advisers have visited a total of 2,829 farms, and 553 follow-up farm visits have been also completed. Farmer engagement is very strong, with 95% of farmers contacted availing of the ASSAP service, and agreement to implement recommended measures at 93%. More than 14,500 issues have been identified by advisers on farms, an average of five per farm, and 44% have been deemed to be high-risk issues.

For water quality improvements to be realised through ASSAP interventions, there needs to be a high level of implementation of the mitigation actions recommended by advisers, and the actions must continually be implemented into the future. Currently, there is variation in the level of implementation of mitigation actions by farmers across the issues identified. Data from the ASSAP interim report for 2020 showed that the level of implementation of measures is positive. On average, 51% of the mitigation actions recommended are commenced, completed or being implemented on an ongoing basis. The non-implementation of actions, where farmers have not started or are not proceeding, is averaged at 37%, with the remaining 12% made up of actions not assigned any implementation status. Although farmers' willingness to take on mitigation actions and the implementation of measures is positive, there is a need for a greater level of implementation of actions across all issues for water quality improvements to occur. Further support for the farmers from the ASSAP advisers is required to help ensure the right measure is used in the right place on farms. We are happy to expand on any aspect of our work, including the ASSAP and the ACP, during the meeting.