Dr. Daire Ó hUallacháin:

I will answer some of these questions. There are thousands of sampling points throughout the country. On the 20 major rivers, as Mr. Massey said, they reflect what is going on in the full catchment because we are now at the outlet. There is continuous data that are capturing flow for every day in these major catchments. They are collecting data on nutrients monthly, typically. For other sites throughout the country, it is being collected quarterly. There are sites throughout the country that are sampled but they are not being sampled for nutrients. However, they are being sampled for ecology because ecology is a reflector or indicator of the water quality.

The EPA would be in a better position to give the full suite of measures. All of these data are available on the EPA website. We should not get overly bogged down on the indicator report it has given. That is reflective of the 20 major rivers for the first six months. It is about the longer term trends for the wider suite of rivers and other parameters. The publication from last week related to nitrogen. There are other reports going to come out relating to phosphorus and ecology as well. We will then get a better full picture of the potential stressors that are in these systems.