Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 10 July 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Compliance with the Nitrates Directive and Implications for Ireland: Discussion (Resumed)
5:30 pm
Dr. Eimear Cotter:
Right. This aspect comes up a lot. There is the nitrates directive and we are doing relatively well when we look at our water quality under this directive because we are measured against a high nitrates standard. For drinking water, this is 50 mg/L. If we look at Ireland through this lens, we do relatively well. If we were to look at Ireland through the lens of the water framework directive, which is looking at full ecological status, as we said earlier, 54% of our waters in Ireland are in a satisfactory condition. On average across the EU, that is 44%. We are, therefore, better in this regard. We are better than the average but we are still about mid-table in the EU. There are others that are better than us and others that are worse than us.
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