Mr. Jack Nolan:

The catchment programme is key. It was being funded at €1.5 million per year, which the Minister increased to €2.5 million per year two years ago. It now includes climate as well as water, which is key, so members can see the co-benefits. All the information Teagasc provides from the catchments feeds into the nitrates review. Commission officials from Brussels have visited the catchments on three separate occasions to look at the soils and hear about the research. The Senator spoke about the dry soils and dry weather in 2018. Research from catchments shows that climate will overwhelm all the measures we put in place. That is not an excuse for us not to put measures in place. We just have to accept that this is something that is there. It also shows that if farmers do what they are meant to be doing, we can improve water quality. We have not got there yet. The farmers in the catchments are getting individual advice and free soil samples. That is where the agricultural sustainability support and advisory programme came from. It came from seeing how successful this catchments programme can be.

As regards expansion, the programme is the envy of our colleagues across Europe. They get water samples every ten minutes but the country as a whole could not afford that. The Senator said the EPA does four or five samples per year. This meets European standards and that will continue but the EPA visits the catchments as well. The catchment visited by the Minister was recently visited by the EPA. There is considerable sharing of data. People may not recognise that the Department, the EPA, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and Teagasc are working together, sharing these data and looking for solutions. These data play a very important role.