Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Friday, 15 May 2026
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy
Lady's Island Lake: Discussion
2:00 am
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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We have no apologies for this meeting today but we have some substitutions. Deputy Johnny Mythen is substituting for Deputy Pa Daly and Senator Cathal Byrne is substituting for Senator Mark Duffy. Deputy George Lawlor is also in attendance.
The first session is to examine progress at Lady's Island Lake. I thank Wexford County Council for hosting us here in Wexford today, for helping us with the organisation of the meeting and providing such excellent facilities. I acknowledge Mr. Eddie Taaffe, Mr. Eamonn Hore and all the staff here for their support and assistance in facilitating this meeting and the ongoing efforts on the issues of Lady's Island Lake. Members will recall that at one of our earliest meetings in June 2025 we considered the EPA-sponsored CLEAR report, which highlighted severe environmental degradation in Lady's Island Lake, driven largely by nutrient pollution. That meeting involved valuable engagement with a wide range of stakeholders and the committee undertook to revisit the issue to assess progress. Today's meeting is an opportunity to follow up on that commitment and to take stock of developments since then and where we are now.
We have two sessions today. The first is with the strategic oversight group and the second session will be with representatives of the Save Lady's Island Lake campaign group and also the Lady's Island Lake drainage committee. I would now like to welcome the following representatives of the strategic oversight group to the meeting. From Wexford County Council: Mr. Eddie Taaffe, chief executive officer; Mr. Eamonn Hore, deputy chief executive officer and director of services; Mr. Abraham Dunne, senior engineer; Mr. Eoin Kinsella, agricultural scientist; and Ms. Sian Gwyther. You are all very welcome. I remind everyone in attendance to make sure their phones are in silent mode or switched off.
Before I invite opening statements, I want to advise in relation to parliamentary privilege. Witnesses and members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that any such direction is complied with.
In relation to the format of this meeting, I will invite the witnesses to make an opening statement to a maximum of five minutes. Once that statement has been delivered, I will call on the members of the committee in the order they indicate to me to put their questions. We have a rota system with an initial five minutes for members to engage with our witnesses. Please note that the five minutes is for both questions and answers and therefore it is essential for members to put their questions succinctly and witnesses to be succinct in their responses. As there are two parts to this meeting, please note that the duration of both parts will be limited. Please be as brief as you can and stick to the times.
Before I hand over to Mr. Hore for his opening statement I remind all contributors to turn their microphone on before beginning to speak and then turn it off when finished.
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
I will start by welcoming the Cathaoirleach and the other members of the Joint Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy to Wexford County Council and to Lady's Island this afternoon. We are here to discuss the progress to date in addressing the current core status designation of Lady's Island Lake. Following the previous meeting with the joint committee on June 11 last year, Wexford County Council was delighted to take the lead on implementing the long-term restoration of Lady's Island Lake with the full support of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. These Departments, along with the Local Authorities Water Programme, LAWPRO, Teagasc and its agricultural sustainability support and advisory programme, ASSAP, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, and Farming for Water EIP now make up the strategic oversight group informing and directing actions required to improve the water quality of Lady's Island Lake. The strategic oversight group is in regular contact and collaboration and has met officially on five occasions to date, with multiple subgroup meetings. Wexford County Council, in conjunction with the strategic oversight group, produced a detailed business plan for consideration by the Department. Following several iterations, the business case was officially submitted to both Departments in early November 2025. The business case advocated for resources to manage the long-term restoration of Lady's Island Lake, in line with the recommendations of the joint committee arising from the CLEAR report.
At a presentation in Lady's Island on 21 November, 2025, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy James Browne, and the Minister of State with responsibility for nature heritage and biodiversity, Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan, announced an initial tranche of €700,000 funding for Wexford County Council to support the development of Lady's Island Lake water quality action plan and to assist Wexford County Council's continued co-operation on a science-led and holistic approach to improving the status of the lake. The committed funding also allowed Wexford County Council to advance the recruitment of dedicated staff to oversee the project on the ground in Lady's Island. The Department agreed Wexford County Council's business plan on 20 November 2025 to fund a senior executive scientist project manager for five years, a project clerical officer for five years, a water quality management plan scoping study and a groundwater scoping hydrogeological assessment. The requisite sanction for the agreed post was received on 9 March 2026. The post of senior executive scientist project manager was advertised on 23 March 2026. Interviews for this key post are scheduled to take place on 29 May 2026.
Wexford County Council procured the services of AtkinsRéalis to undertake a scoping study to review and make recommendations on the water quality action plan, Lady's Island Lake sustainable farming community scheme iteration. The review examined Wexford County Council's draft water quality action plan in the context of its review by the water action group at the Department as well as the EPA CLEAR report. This included a hydrogeological review and drawing on the experience of the Duncannon blue flag farming and community scheme EIP. The plan was assessed under the following themes: scope and alignment of current legislation; stakeholder engagement; catchment characterisation; scientific evidence; source apportionment; data gaps; measures; funding and monitoring; and communication and accessibility.
The recommendations put forward are based on a sound scientific approach that considers short- and longer-term strategies and commitment to actively engage with stakeholders both locally and nationally. Wexford County Council also procured Mr. Henning Mohn of MKO planning and environmental services to report on a phase 1 hydrogeological assessment of Lady's Island Lake groundwater catchment. I will give a couple of quick bullet points on the report brief. It included: the hydrogeological setting; the role of groundwater in delivering flux and nutrient loads to the lake; knowledge gaps identified, including groundwater pathways; and identifying suitable mitigation actions for reducing nutrient loads from groundwater, based on identified source pathway receptor linkages. As part of Wexford County Council's efforts to ensure compliance with the current regulations, our environment section has conducted inspections under both the national agricultural inspection programme and the national inspection plan for domestic wastewater treatment systems. To date, inspections have been conducted on 85% of the farms, revealing a non-compliance rate of 41%. This is in line with national non-compliance rates. On the day of inspection, records were taken in relation to non-compliance. These included: inadequate buffer management; soil-water management; clean water diversion; silage bale storage; inadequate drinking points and fencing of watercourses. All non-compliance letters have been issued, with follow-up visits planned. All farms within the catchment area will have received an initial inspection before the end of May 2026. Under the national inspection plan for domestic wastewater treatment systems, a total of 30 septic tank inspections have been conducted, revealing a non-compliance rate of 57%. The main reasons for non-compliance were desludging, servicing issues, direct discharge to the watercourse, of which there was one case, and discharge on the surface, of which there was again one case. A further 30 inspections have been arranged for before the end of May 2026.
Wexford County Council has conducted quarterly sampling of the 13 feeder streams. These samples took place in April, August and December 2025 and March 2026. A total of 48 samples were collected during these sampling runs and 37 of the samples exceeded the 1.8 mg/l for nitrate-N and 35 samples exceeded the 0.035 mg/l for orthophosphate.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the oversight group and all those who have assisted to date. Special thanks go to our consultants, AtkinsRéalis and Mr. Henning Mohn of MKO, for producing excellent reports within such tight timeframes and there is huge credit to catchment scientist, Mr. Donal Daly, who was Wexford County Council's first point of contact.
I also thank Brendan Cooney, senior executive scientist, for all his efforts in recent months in progressing the Lady’s Island lake project to this point. Brendan recently retired from Wexford County Council. We wish him well.
There are a number of important appendices, including statements from ASSAP, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, LAWPRO, the EPA and the WAU. They are all very good updates on the work that is being carried out by those groups as part of the strategic oversight group.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Thank you. We move to the members for questions and engagement. The normal rules apply.
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank Mr. Hore for the presentation and thank the group for hosting us today. It seems that a huge amount of work has happened since we last met the group, which is very positive. It is great to get that oversight of what has been going on.
I have a question concerning the inspection rate on the farms. Reference was made to 85%. Would that be 40 or 50 farms, or something like that?
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I imagine that some of the things found are costly to remediate. What is the plan for those farmers? Do they have to remediate fully? Are there supports for them to do that? One of the issues raised was that while some things might be easily resolved, with other issues, the farmers might need support to move to farming that does not impact as much on the lake. Is funding provided by the Department to assist with that? Are there other funding streams that the group can point the farmers to, so they can get support to make those changes?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
Soiled water management is a big issue nationally. That is what we found at the Lady’s Island Lake catchment. The non-compliance we were observing on the day was very minor and related to clean water management and clean water diversion. There are very straightforward fixes. Through Wexford County Council and the national agriculture inspection programme, we give clear guidelines and timeframes. These could be anything from three months to six months, and we could be working to the next storage period.
The good thing that we are observing at Lady’s Island concerns the storage services. To date, we have come across just two farmers who have a deficit in storage. The question lies with the Department of agriculture as to the funding that the farmer can apply for. In order for a farmer to apply for TAMS funding to increase storage, that farmer needs to be compliant with storage requirements, which is 16 weeks of slurry storage, or 31 days for soiled water. A lot of that expenditure comes out of the farmer’s pocket alone. That is a big drawback at present.
To go back to Lady’s Island, there are funding streams available. We are letting farmers know about TAMS funding and the Farming for Water EIP for minor non-compliance on the land. At present, there is a pocket of money available through TAMS for all of those farmers.
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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It is really positive. I am not aware of many catchment areas where there has been this very holistic approach, where all of the different agencies are coming together, identifying what the problem is and then, hopefully, working out the steps to resolve it. It could go beyond enforcement issues, and I imagine broader issues will be identified as part of the assessments. It is a very good and positive model as to how this can be done. Hopefully, we will see improvements.
I know a lot of work is under way. What are the timeframes? When does the group hope to see improvements, or is it even at that point yet?
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
I will take that question, and Mr. Kinsella might come back in at that point. We have definite timeframes for what we can control. We will have every farm inspected by the end of this month. The ones that have been inspected have already received their non-compliance letters, and they have been re-inspected. As Mr. Kinsella said, many of them can be fixed without huge expenditure.
We are getting additional staff because we want to investigate the septic tanks, which will take a long time. Apart from the two staff committed by the Department, we are providing an extra technician to make sure that we inspect the septic tanks within a reasonably quick period. We will then have all of the physical inputs, whether related to the farms or the septic tanks. Uisce Éireann is co-operating well, as the committee saw from its comments. We will have all of the ones that we can identify inspected, and we can then start to make improvements, particularly with the septic tank grant moneys.
I do not know if members had time to read the updates from the EPA on our plan for going forward. We have to collect some more evidence to make sure it is scientifically based. That will happen for the rest of the year. We will then be able to bring in further interventions at that stage based on science. It is important to get all of the sources sorted first, and we can then look at the medium or longer term.
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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The group knows the current sources coming into the system, but there are legacy sources, including a huge amount of sediment in the base of the lake. Is it part of the assessment to quantify that and work out what is possible within the environmental bounds of dealing with that legacy sediment?
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
Part of the science approach is how best to deal with the sediment that is lying at the bottom of the lake. The first task is to deal with the point sources to ensure there is no continuation of that. The legacy will take slightly longer. We have to get it right. In relation to the groundwater movements, what we have found so far differs slightly from the characterisation that was there before. It proves that it was a wise idea to begin the surveys to find out exactly what is happening there.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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I thank Wexford County Council for hosting us today and thank the group for the presentation. My first question is for Mr. Kinsella. If we go back to the CLEAR report, one of the findings was that to enable the lagoon to switch back to benthic macrophyte dominance would require at least a tenfold reduction in nutrient import, which is a significant challenge.
Looking at the AtkinsRéalis report, first, it is the correct course of action to scope out as much as possible and gather data. I commend all of the work that has been done to date, which is to be welcomed. The farmers feel they are being singled out in all of this. I will speak about the septic tanks separately. The AtkinsRéalis report stated there is a perception of a few bad actors in the farming community causing the problems, but the research group states that the problem is more likely the difficult situation of incompatible land-use application on soils that cannot handle the requirements. A few months ago, we had a presentation at Lady’s Island from Dr. Elaine McGoff of An Taisce. The critical issue that she pointed out related to the nitrogen pathways, which are much more on the surface and very difficult to deal with because even buffer zones will not resolve those. Has that been discussed? Is it too early to look at mitigation measures in that regard?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
The figures that were mentioned throughout the last ten months were the fivefold to sevenfold decrease in nutrients. That comes back to the WFD standards.
When we look at the habitats directive, we note a tenfold decrease. It is a worrying number.
At the meeting I attended with Brendan Cooney at Dr. Elaine McGoff’s, there was major concern about what will be achievable in the next five years in the context of nitrates. We need to adhere to what the EPA is currently saying, namely that we cannot jump too fast with any water quality action plan. There is further characterisation needed.
There is no silver bullet when it comes to nitrates and water quality. We start with the very basics, and that is what the Farming for Water European innovation partnership is currently doing on the ground with ASSAP advisers from Teagasc and Tirlán. That goes back to the basics of nutrient management planning, implementing a nutrient management plan and considering rainwater management plans. Nitrogen use efficiency is also important. It is going to be a stepping stone over the next five years. At a lakes workshop or conference in the past couple of years, some people were talking about a 20-year restoration period. However, we are hopeful that we can start spinning this around over the next five years.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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In her presentation, Dr. McGoff raised the idea of housing animals at different times of the year in order to manage levels. That is going to be a significant challenge for farmers, given the challenge they already have even with the storage of effluent.
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
As mentioned in the Oireachtas last year, I farm in the area in question. Over the past couple of years, the weather changes and patterns we have been seeing have been a major worry. What we saw this year was major rainfall in January and February. Now, we are nearly in a drought period. This means considering buffer feeding. There is a level of intensification. It is not just at Lady's Island; it is from Louth to Cork.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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It is clear that the septic tank grants are simply not fit for purpose. From recommendations that we can look to, we know that the grants should be radically altered in terms of both the ease with which people can apply for them and the amount of money available. I do not know if Mr. Kinsella would agree. To what extent does he believe, even from the initial research carried out, that septic tanks might be contributing to eutrophication in the waters?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
The approach to septic tank grants over the past couple of years has eased up. Applicants are not means tested. There is no kind of registration requirement or pre-inspection. The grant has increased to €12,000. As we can all agree, construction costs have risen over the past couple of years. Our technicians are looking at quotations coming in of €15,000, €17,000 or €20,000 for the system. The only thing that we see in Lady's Island is that our soil type may minimise the cost, so the €12,000 may be sufficient to see out the works.
Householders have to bear the burden of the cost until the works are finished. It is only at that stage, when the engineer submits the final paperwork, that the grant can be paid out.
On the question of what is contributing at present, we only know the failure rate of 57%. There are a further 30 inspections to be carried out, so we can expect that number to increase even given the area that we will be in over the next couple of weeks.
To come back to what is fit for purpose, €12,000 probably does not go a fair distance, especially when there is a cost of €15,000.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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Do the witnesses believe it might be best if the grants were front-loaded ahead of the works? Many householders will struggle to meet the cost, even in light of the fact that it can be recouped afterwards. On the finding of solutions, I am not saying that the area around Lady’s Island Lake should be treated differently, but maybe I am. Maybe there is a case to be made for the grants to be front-loaded. With a view to the committee making recommendations, we should be considering a radical overhaul of the grant system.
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
Yes, I agree. As the approach at Lady’s Island is probably radically different, and considering that I have not seen a project involving so much co-operation and input, maybe we should be radical. The first step would be to have phased payments. If there is a genuine problem and people genuinely want to engage with us, perhaps we will consider front-loading payments. Wexford County Council is very good at paying invoices really quickly. People know and appreciate that.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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I thank the witnesses.
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Can Mr. Hore explain how the strategic oversight group operates? There are at least seven different departments involved. Obviously, each will have its own ideas. How do things come together? Who do reports come from and where do they go? Who is responsible for the reports?
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
I am happy to take that. I reviewed this last night. There are four representatives from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, two from LAWPRO, two from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, three from the other Department, four from Wexford County Council, four from Teagasc and one from Tirlán. There is also representation from ASSAP. There are 22 people - all prominent in their own fields - involved. When we came together first, we set a proper agenda and dates for subsequent meetings. We deal with the agenda items. All involved bring their own expertise. We might deal with some of what LAWPRO has done to date and some of what Teagasc has done. We undertook to develop the business plan and everybody fed into that, and then there was work on the plan to go forward with that. Everybody, including the EPA, fed into the plan. We decided together that we would need consultants to do specific hydrogeological reports. We meet regularly. There are also subgroups. I have a list of all the meetings held to date, either as a complete body or as subgroups involving people addressing specific items.
We were just talking about this before the meeting. Maybe we will have a more structured approach whereby we will set out what our aims are and have proper minutes and everything else. We do have minutes and an agenda but we need to be far more structured going forward because people will want minutes on what we are doing, where our work comes from and how we back it up. There are very committed people. That is how we have operated and that is how we have come to advance it to this point.
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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On the scientific evidence, are reports produced on the amount of stock in the catchment area?
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Why not? Cattle are one of the main causes of the problem.
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
We would have the stocking rates of farms. These would be whole-farm or grassland stocking rates. We would have the number of farmers currently in derogation. We would have the numbers of farmers’ primary enterprises, including tillage, dairy, beef, horses and sheep. With regard to collating the data to find the total head number, stock numbers change weekly on the majority of farms owing to sales and purchases. However, we can examine where the stocking rates are changing.
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Obviously, the more stock you have, the more phosphorous and nitrogen you have.
Would it not be a good idea to find out exactly what is in the area?
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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I agree with Senator Noonan on the septic tank grants. They are not enough. We all know the cost of building at the moment. The cost is colossal even to get a digger in for one or two days. It has to be looked at.
George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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I spent many years in this chamber. I should be used to the microphones.
Everyone is very welcome to Wexford. This is a chamber that I am very familiar with. I thank the witnesses for the excellent that has been undertaken on this project to date. Certainly, Our Lady's Island is one of the jewels in the crown of County Wexford, so the notion that the lake has found itself in this condition is obviously very sad, but it is terrific that the bull has been grabbed by the horns, if people pardon the pun, in an effort to remediate what has been going on.
I want to go back to what Deputy Whitmore spoke about in relation to sediment and the impact it could have on any future remediation works. We have an area in Wexford town, Crescent Quay, which a lot of people will be familiar with. To do any work on the sediment there would require a vast sum of money, and it is only one-two-hundredth the size of Lady's Island Lake. We would be into huge money and various licensing agreements would have to be met. It is something that we stepped back from during my time on Wexford County Council because of the level of funds that were required to do the job, but also the huge number of boxes that had to be ticked in terms of licences and permissions that had to be received.
What impact will the sediment that is currently in the lake have on a remediation process? Do we have any information on that as it stands? Is it something that has to be got rid of or washed out during the cutting or anything like that? Is that something that has to be dealt with if any works are to be effective in bringing the lake back to where we want it to be?
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
I thank Deputy Lawlor. It has to be taken in stages. We have to try to minimise or stop what is going into it, and that is what we are doing at the moment. Part of the whole scientific approach is to see what the best way is to treat the sediment that is there already. It may not be to dredge the whole thing, given the significance and importance of the lake, but looking at the best way to treat the sediment in the lake is a big part of what the consultants, ourselves and all the team will be looking at. In the afternoon, the committee will hear information from the lake drainage committee relating to the drainage of the lake and the technical solution to that, which will have an impact on sediment and salinity as well. It is a big part of our proposals.
George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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Is there a danger that the level of works required could make this unviable if that sediment has to be tackled? Could we be looking at a 20-year timescale in terms of full remediation, if the sediment is an issue?
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
The Deputy might remember hearing at the last meeting that it had taken 40 years to get to this stage. It may very well take 20 years to get it back to the level that is required. Once we stop the inputs and sort out the technical issues with the lake drainage, nature has a great way of repairing itself, and that will be a factor as well. However, if there is a way that we can speed it up by dealing with the sediment, we will find it out and deal with it properly.
George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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On the septic tank issue, I think 37 were left to be tested. That is the entire septic tank population located close by the lake and maybe impacting on it.
George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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Will all of those be inspected?
George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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Given that this is a special area of conservation, perhaps we should be looking at a special area of remediation in terms of the way we treat and examine septic tanks and the grant aid and other funding provided for them. If we are talking about spending perhaps tens of millions of euro on fixing this problem, are we aware of any precedence in any other areas in relation to the special treatment of septic tanks and the problems and difficulties that they may be contributing to the lake? Have there been any discussions on this?
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
The problem with septic tanks has been ongoing for a number of years and we have remediated hundreds of them at this stage, but not in such a confined space with the number of eyes, inputs and science-based data we have on Lady's Island Lake. Nothing as detailed has been done before, as far as I am aware of. That is why this will be a very good project and may be an exemplar of how to go forward. Not to get too concerned about the septic tanks, but lots of them will be resolved within the €12,000 figure. There are the ones that were maybe done years ago where there was only a hole in the ground and very little treatment after that. There are a lot of newer septic tanks that are much more up to standard than years ago.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for not just joining us today, but hosting us in Wexford. It is a wonderful part of the world. I visited Our Lady's Island for the first time last year and there is huge tourism potential beyond even where it is at the moment. This sort of initiative is very important in that regard.
I commend Wexford County Council on the work it has done but it has had to bring a lot of stakeholders to the table in order to try to pave a way forward. Is there any stakeholder or body that did not engage that the witnesses feel should have engaged, or engaged but did not engage to the extent that they would have expected it to?
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
No. When we brought it all together so that we could present here, I was actually very pleasantly surprised at the level of engagement and the level of interest. The level of engagement has been phenomenal. I will give the committee a bit of an update. Teagasc and Tirlán have committed two advisers to this project and ASSAP is voluntarily and confidentially going beyond the regulations. Advisers have engaged with over 40 farmers - this is over and above what Wexford County Council has done - about Our Lady's Island and submitted over 30 plans so far, with a further ten farmers committed to engaging with ASSAP. There are a small number of farmers and landowners outstanding, and they will be identified and contacted in due course. There is a focus on highlighting areas on the map. Catch crops have been successfully implemented in the area with an excellent uptake of the pilot scheme. ASSAP assessments go beyond the EIP measures, supporting farmers and bespoke farm plans. That is an update from Teagasc and Tirlán, which shows their commitment. It is a similar with LAWPRO and maybe Mr. Kinsella will update the committee on some of that. The members can see the level of commitment from all of the groups. Nobody has been left out. Nobody has inputted in a way that we would not be satisfied with.
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
In terms of the work done by LAWPRO, its staff would have been the boots on the ground prior to Covid-19. It did a lot of work in 2019 and held the first public meeting for that area. That covered Lady's Island Lake, Tacumshin Lake and Ballyteigue Slob, which make up the Wexford lagoons. LAWPRO had boots on the ground in terms of sampling, and it would have done a lot sampling in six or seven streams up around the northern side of the lake, so there is a lot of data there.
I agree with Mr. Hore. We have had very positive engagements with all of the stakeholders to date. A lot of work has been done. Even in the last couple of months, there have been a lot of positives to be looked at in terms of water sampling, the funding that is available in that respect and the funding that we have got from the Department of housing. That money can be spent analysing the real-time data on water sampling.
We have engaged with Teagasc research on its measures for water project.
It has committed to a sonde being placed in the Kisha 010, the main feeder stream to Lady's Island Lake. That will give us real-time data. Every 15 minutes, a sample will be taken from that. That is a massive asset to have in a lake. We are here 40 years, but that will give us a real understanding. It shows the level of engagement on the part of all stakeholders involved in the meetings we have had with the subgroups.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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In the context of projected costs, I appreciate the business case being made in relation to five years, a clerical officer, a senior project manager and so on. In light of some of the witnesses' comments, whether it be five years or 20, where do they envisage it going after 2030? Will it be embedded back into the environmental section of the council or what will occur?
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
There is no doubt that it will revert to Wexford County Council, but at least it will be back at a good standard. The farmers will have done whatever is needed, Uisce Éireann will have done its part and septic tanks will have done theirs. The land drainage committee will have a technical solution. I would be disappointed if that was not all achieved. It will revert to us in a good state, with the future looking bright, as far as I am concerned.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Is Mr. Hore confident that the necessary tasks will be executed within the five-year window?
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
No, I would say we will be back talking to the committee on and off over the next couple of years. We should be in a much better place in five years, but we have issues with sediment and so on. Until we find out from the lake drainage committee the best way to deal with that and how it impacts, we might have to continue beyond the five years. As the scheme develops and improvements take place, we will know more. This is not something we can guarantee will be back to good status in five years. There will certainly be an improvement, but I cannot give a guarantee on that.
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
We have to recognise the €60 million farming for water EIP as well. That is there for the next number of years. There are talks about increasing not only the funding stream but also how long it will be there. Much of that came about from the previous agri EIP and the funding available for it from the Department of agriculture. It is vital that that funding be continued for the next ten years.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I thank the witnesses and appreciate them hosting us today. It is lovely to be down in the sunny south east. It is great to see both progress and the oversight group being formed. The witnesses have met five times as a group, and there are subgroups looking at particular issues. What issues have the subgroups been focusing on in detail in recent months?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
The SOG has met five times. We met again this week for an update on where every organisation or agency is. The subgroup meetings were with the various consultants involved, like AtkinsRéalis, Henning Moe and Donal Daly. We held a meeting with some dedicated researchers from Teagasc research in Johnstown Castle. Those meetings were followed by meeting the likes of the researcher over the measures for water project. Look where that has brought us to: we will have real-time data coming out the main Kisha 010 stream. That is where the importance of subgroup meetings comes in.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Mr. Kinsella said that he had a major worry about what is achievable in the next five years for nitrates and that there is no silver bullet. What is achievable in the near term in relation to nitrates?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
That query also came across from the EPA. What are our targets for Lady's Island Lake from the point of view of the water framework directive and the habitats directive? I have been hearing this about the impact of nitrates in the south east for many years. It is small stepping stones. That is where we need to go. I managed the Duncannon EIP for five years. I always stated down there that a farmer without soil samples or a nutrient management plan is farming blind. It is as simple as that. That is where they start, and then they go into the various mitigation measures, including liming, sulphur and nitrogen use efficiency. There are various measures under the farming for water EIP. A number of bespoke measures will possibly be implemented in this water call to action plan that will need extra funding. They will be special cases.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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What kind of bespoke measures would Mr. Kinsella suggest?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
Some of the measures not covered under the farm for water EIP concern construction on wetland systems and wetland ponds. They would be a huge cost. The CLEAR report emphasised it could be to the tune of €60,000. That funding needs to be got from somewhere if there is scientific data that a 2, 3, 4 or 5 ha wetland system is needed for a certain feeder stream.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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When will that data be collated? Is that near term, will it be one, two or three years? What are the timeframes in respect of this type of project?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
We have sampled five times since 2025. We are already looking at data as to what streams are impacting the most. There has been work with ASSAP and the farming for water EIP on the measures they can implement, but it will be back to the drawing board in the next year or two to see exactly what is needed there.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Has the oversight group set targets regarding where it wants the lake to be in three years or five years? Are there specific or measurable targets for water quality? Can it do that?
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
I do not think we can do it at the moment. What we can do is make sure all farms, septic tanks and inputs have been visited and improvements put in place. Members may get a chance to read the submissions in detail, particularly the one from the EPA. The EPA reviewed our document. It commented that it - the EPA - advocates for the right measure in the right place, which requires measure implementation to be targeted from a strong evidence base. That evidence is still being collected. We have found to date something different from what was considered the information on groundwater. It is a matter of getting all the scientific information together and then we may be able to say within 12 months, "Here are our targets and here is what we can do".
The other meetings were asked about, and Mr. Kinsella mentioned the wetland systems. We had a meeting and attended a workshop with Feidhlim Harty on wetland systems. We had a meeting with Teagasc research at Johnstown College. We met with the CLEAR project authors on site. Those are side meetings apart from the five main meetings which everybody from the strategic oversight group attends and which everybody feeds into. There is a lot of work going on. We have to collect the data. We have identified a number of bore-holes in the catchment area that will give us groundwater information, but we may need to put in one or two more strategic groundwater wells to analyse that data.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I appreciate that the gathering of data is the first phase of this. Is there a timeline for having enough data in order to move to the implementation phase and get down to it?
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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It is great to be here to hear in person. It strikes me that in the context of the septic tank issue, there could be a useful precedent around special areas of conservation. I am conscious that when we, as a committee, are looking at other areas, such as retrofitting and others, we look at group schemes. That is the idea not simply around the front-loading of a grant. The idea is that if 15 or 20 septic tanks in an area are going to need to be brought to scale, the contract might well manage to come below that €12,000 threshold if it were a large contract. That could then be paid back retrospectively. The idea of a group initiative is something we have looked at in other areas, such as retrofitting. These are areas where it is not simply in the interests of the individual but in the interests of the public and our special areas of conservation that it be done. It is one area we should look at.
Our report carried a lot. It included a line which stated that the vast majority of farming practices were in compliance. Looking at the figures, now that we have the real data, that is not really the case. We are at 41% non-compliance, which matches international non-compliance rates. I still have a question about why we are getting the nitrates derogation when we have such a high level of national and local non-compliance. Mr. Kinsella mentioned that he had information on the number of farms that were in derogation. How does that map onto those that are not in compliance? Are there farms that are getting the derogation but are not in compliance on this issue?
There was mention of small steps on nitrates, which I will push back on a little. Even this new derogation is ending in three years. I feel like a lot of time was wasted, nationally and locally. Instead of preparing for the end of the derogation, we were preparing for how to get the next derogation. This is probably the last one. It is great that there is such buy-in and engagement from the farming community, but there does need to be a conversation about stocking levels and nitrates. There is an imperative. We do not have five years but three years for that piece because the derogation will end. Will the witnesses come in a little more strongly about how we shift the model for nitrates?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
The 41% non-compliance rate we are seeing is on par with the national figure. It is a little higher on the national side. When we go onto a farm, we have a set of articles with the regulations under SI 588 that we must follow. A farm can fall down to a non-compliant state by missing a gutter or downpipe from a shed. That same farm might not have any storage issues. When we go onto a farm with storage issues, that too is seen as non-compliance. It is probably best that we map out the minor and major non-compliance instances.
We have very few derogation farmers in the catchment. There are approximately seven or eight such dairy farmers. We have a mix of derogation farmers on the beef side and the dairy side on a national basis. When I think about derogation, I think about the agricultural catchments programme and the work down in the Timoleague catchment in Cork and what people there are seeing. There is a major need for more focus on the derogation and nitrates side of things. We now have a model catchment in Wexford that sits very close to Johnstown Castle. We can use those derogation farmers. What Timoleague is seeing is that despite an increase in stocking rates, the rivers are going the opposite way. They are seeing lower nitrate levels.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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We are going to need a huge shift because we are, unfortunately, coming from a very low bar in many parts of the country.
I will come to the piece about the 13 feeder streams that had very high levels of nitrates. I know the witnesses are covering the catchment area. How far back along the feeder streams, if the witnesses know what I mean, is the research going? How much is being captured? I know there is monitoring of the feeder streams and the nitrates levels. Are the witnesses satisfied that the major inputs into those streams are coming within the scientific assessment?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
From a groundwater point of view, I would not be happy. It is unclear as to what groundwater influence is currently there. That needs further work and a lot more characterisation, especially on the western side of what we are seeing.
The 13 feeder streams range in length from 0.8 km to 5.7 km. Our longest one would be the main Kisha 010 stream where this nitrate analyser is sitting. From a geographical point of view, we are working the whole way from the main road between Tagoat and Kilrane and working our way south.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Mr. Kinsella in on the agricultural science side, which is a huge part of the focus. In terms of the environmental science, I saw a note from the National Parks and Wildlife Service about tern wardening. Part of that thing of its being a special area of conservation, and that it is that very particular thing of being a coastal lagoon with certain levels of salinity, is all part of what makes it a special area. Within that partnership, are the witnesses confident they are getting enough resources in terms of the environmental science and monitoring the species, flora and fauna, and that side of the piece?
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I ask for an extra brief comment on that question.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Water quality is such a focus.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I ask for brief comments.
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
The project manager will mainly have the role of engaging with the farming and the wider community side of things. When we look at the ecology side of things, every year we see the tern wardens down there doing their work. I do not think the funding that we have at this present moment will branch out further than water quality.
Cathal Byrne (Fine Gael)
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It is great to be back in this room. I spent five and a half years in this room as a councillor and I never made it to the top table, so it is great to be back here this morning. I thank the committee and the chair for holding this meeting in this room. It is important when you are discussing an issue such as Lady's Island Lake that the members of the committee have an opportunity to come to Wexford and see the real impact it is having on the local area and to bring a national viewpoint and perspective, and national attention to it. I commend the members of the committee on coming to Wexford. I hope they will come back again soon.
I want to talk about some of the work that has been done so far. Given the levels of compliance that farmers are put under through the various schemes and initiatives, I thought what Mr. Kinsella said was quite telling. He said you could have a farmer who is non-compliant with the overall scheme perhaps as a result of a downpipe or drainpipe, and there are so many different categories. I want to delve into that a little more. In terms of the analysis that the witnesses have been doing on the farmers' side of the house, would they say it is the case that material and substantial non-compliance is in the minority or the majority? Where would it be overall?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
Many of the instances of non-compliance observed fall into the minor category and are fixed within three months. That is a very short-term answer. We are talking about buffer management that is basically a compliance letter going out to the farmer to ask them to observe their buffer distances, as per SI 588 of 2025.
Cathal Byrne (Fine Gael)
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It is too soon to be getting recommendations, but would it be the view that farmers will need some sort of grant or financial assistance to be able to deal with some of these issues in this particular location? Would the witnesses envisage that being one of the recommendations?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
Many of those minor issues such as clean water diversion, unfortunately, fall within SI 588. When a farmer is non-compliant with the good agricultural practice, GAP, regulations, it comes out of their own pocket. That comes back to their signing up to the basic income support payment every year. By putting their signature on that paper, they are confirming that they will comply with SI 588, which means the smaller things like clean water diversion right up to 16 weeks storage, 31 days storage and the buffers of 5 m or 10 m. It goes beyond that in terms of drinking water.
Cathal Byrne (Fine Gael)
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Is the council happy with the level of resources it has so far? I know it got about €700,000 to pursue this programme. Given that it has now started into the work, have there been any unforeseen requirements that necessitate further resources or is it happy with what it has at the moment? That is my last question.
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
We are more than happy with the resources we have at the moment. We are very happy with the commitment that both Ministers have given to this project. We are also happy with the strength of the Taoiseach's statement on Lady's Island Lake. The Senator's question to us is important because the 41% has to be put in the context of how most of those are minor and can be fixed relatively easily.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I will come back to the issue of sediment. There are lots of good programmes of work, assessments, inspections, etc. Like other members, I am still a bit unclear as to how the sediment issue will be addressed. Is there a separate group? Is it phased work? Is NPO planning being commissioned to do something specific? How is the sediment issue being progressed as a body of work?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
The end of the CLEAR project report observed that dredging 50 cm of sediment out of a 350 ha lake equated to about 6 million tonnes of sediment. That sediment carries a level of nutrients and then someone has to decide what to do with it. Is it along the sea? Are we going to Dubai with it? It is that type of thing. At present, I do not think it is being looked at. It will require a longer term solution. We need to bear in mind that we have a special area of conservation, SAC, and a special protection area, SPA, on our hands as well.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The issue has to be considered. Wexford County Council is doing a lot of good work in improving the water going into the lake. We will have to square up to the issue of sediment or, as Mr. Kinsella said, nature may take its course over time. At the very least, we need a strategy. If that strategy has been assessed and is okay, we might not go near it for now and perhaps do so in five years' time. At the very least, the group needs to form a view and a strategy for the sediment.
What is the narrative in relation to the farmers? Is there good co-operation from the farmers? Do they get it? Are they on board and co-operating well? How would Mr. Kinsella characterise it?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
It is like all farmers. A very small minority of farmers may have an issue with any local authority. To date, we have had no issues with booking in inspections, carrying out the initial inspections and following up. There is serious buy-in from the farmers. From a local perspective, a relationship has been built there already. I spoke with one farmer recently who was delighted that Wexford County Council had led on the Duncannon EIP and was delighted to see Wexford County Council leading on this. There is great buy-in. There is an element of worry within the agricultural community about the derogation, as Senator Higgins said. People are concerned about whether they need to build and increase their storage. That level of worry can frustrate farmers. During our inspections, if we come across storage issues or minor non-compliances, it just adds to the worry. The approach in Wexford and with other local authorities under the national agricultural inspection programme has been very positive to date.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Nutrient pollution in the lake is what this is all about. The opening statement outlines the work that has been done so far. This goes to Deputy Ahern's point as well. I think Wexford County Council should start measuring and publishing scientific data for Lady's Island Lake. It may be doing so already, but I have not seen it. What are the key nutrient pollution scientific measures that it will sample in the lake? How often will it do so? It may or may not show progress in the next six months, year or whatever, but it will be sampling and making the data available. Please God, it will show progress. At the very least, that will be publicly published. It is a bit like the bathing water data. By settling on a set of statistics, measures and a regime and then publishing that information, the public understand where things are at. Over time, I hope they will be able to see hard data showing an improvement. I hope the witnesses can take that away and consider it.
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
Mr. Kinsella outlined that real-time data was gathered from the longest stream. Two of the streams do not run dry. We are separately going to put a data logger on the other stream that runs for 12 months to get real-time data. We will also put real-time data measurements on the lake itself. They will be available and we will publish those.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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They will be scientific metrics showing the nitrates levels and Wexford County Council will publish those.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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We now come to the second round of questions, with two minutes per member.
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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From listening to the conversations today, I have one major concern about the project, in that it is very focused on water quality. Obviously, water pollution is the reason we are seeing such problems down there but we should be trying to improve the ecological health of the system. There does not seem to be any ecological monitoring of the streams. While having water quality monitoring is useful, particularly real-time monitoring, where periodic water monitoring is happening it is just assessing the actual pollution at that particular point in time. I cannot see any proposal in this for macroinvertebrate monitoring. The macroinvertebrates will reveal what is really happening in the streams and whether there will be any benefits from the work.
When I look at the project details, who is being employed, who is involved and what time is being set aside, I cannot see anyone with environmental or ecological qualifications or expertise here. Obviously, we need people with farming expertise, but I cannot see that side of the picture being incorporated into the staffing on the project. The National Parks and Wildlife Service's contribution is to monitor the terns. The migratory birds are not impacted by the water quality in Lady's Island Lake; they feed coastally. They are no indication of the quality of Lady's Island Lake. I have major concerns about the lack of any ecological focus in this project.
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
The AtkinsRéalis report advised us to look at bird populations within Lady's Island Lake and the impact they were having from a faeces point of view.
The first question about Q value assessments brings me back to the memories of meeting our ecologists about the Duncannon project. We will actually consider looking at the long-term trends for Q value assessments, because it is only when you see the better invertebrates increasing in rivers that will give you a long-term indication of where water quality is going. I take the Deputy's point.
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I would not just consider it. I think what is needed is to have an ecologist on the team. There needs to be someone who is monitoring this from an ecological perspective. Even when you are talking about providing information on a website, people will not be able to look at a whole list of nitrate figures and say that looks really good and there is a lot of really good work happening there. However, they will be able to connect with it if they see there are a few species that are actually improving and these species mean it is good water quality. That is what people in the community will connect with but that is what we ultimately want to have: ecological health.
There is probably a risk that we could get to the end of the five years here and say that while the measures Wexford County Council is working on in the agriculture sector will be really welcome, they are relatively small, from what Mr. Kinsella is saying. I do not know if we will really see any major changes from those relatively small measures. There is obviously something else. Ultimately, I suspect it is stocking rates that is causing the problem. There need to be stepping stones along the way so that, at two years, there is a point where we ask if this is approach working, whether we are actually achieving what we need to achieve, and maybe we need to look for funding to see if we can reduce stocking density, change, diversify or help farmers if they want to move into other areas that might not have as much of an impact. The ecological component of that will be so important in identifying if it is working and what needs to be changed if it is not.
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
We are happy to take that on board, but as I stated earlier, there are four members of the strategic group who represent the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The reason it is so important is the saline element of it. The service has recently signed a contract where it will monitor the saline element over the next two years - the Deputy has probably already seen that - which ties in with the group the committee will be meeting afterwards about the lake level, which will have a huge impact as well. I agree with the Deputy. We actually need some ecological expert to look at that element of it as well. As there is such an input from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, we will be trying not to make that element of it any worse. I take on board that ecology is an important part of it.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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At the outset, we were discussing that this might be a 20-year project. Looking at the nature restoration plan, that will be a 25-year timeline. The learnings and the outputs from the work being done to date and building it into the European Innovation Partnership, EIP, could sit nicely into a national nature restoration plan. That is something worth considering too, based on the point that Deputy Whitmore made. Farming will change over that period too. Climate change will force change and farmers will have to adapt to changing weather patterns, etc. All of that land use change piece will happen over that time but it would be wise to look at how it embeds itself into a national nature restoration plan and how that might develop long-term funding mechanisms for landowners and other initiatives.
There is a second point I want to make and I have a question about the Atkins report. It looks at short-term, existing opportunities and quick wins. That could be something for the whole piece about bringing people with us on this and informing the public and the wider narrative that progress is being made. It is really important to get those shorter-term gains. Donal Daly, the catchment scientist, has a recommendation about the restoration of the Kisha River to get it to good status. I go back to the point about ecologists because that would be good ecological status under the water framework directive. It also states that it will not have a longer term impact on the lagoon itself but it will contribute positively. Is that something we could look at in terms of taking the Kisha and looking at that specifically, focusing on that and getting it from not at risk to good status over a shorter period of time?
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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I thank Mr. Hore.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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That is the thing with the feeder stream piece and trying to look at each of those because they become measures people can really see and witness their impact. I really reiterate the ecological point.
On the special protection areas and special areas of conservation, if we are looking at this, there is almost a model of potential good travel: the fact here is the nature restoration plan, the nitrates derogation will be going and there will have to be a shift in farming. There is also another shift where we are seeing a lot of new measures in special areas of conservation, SACs, where we will potentially see developments that might negatively impact those. During this period where there is this strong focus on trying to bring a special area of conservation back up to standard, something I would like to see for special areas of conservation across the country, is there a measure of looking to anything new that might actually compromise that? We are seeing there may be things coming down the track under strategic planning measures or the like which slightly lessen the protection for special areas of conservation. Are the witnesses talking to other areas with special areas of conservation and trying to exchange practices? Within Wexford's are development plan, what measures are the witnesses taking to protect against any future threats to that special area of conservation, be it a strategic development or other developments that could compromise it?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
I might come in as the Senator mentioned the national parks. Since we started our oversight group, one of the areas that the National Parks and Wildlife Service can support the SPAs and SACs is through the farm scheme plans. They have been existence for a long time. Something that is developing for farmers as well surrounding SACs is a new strategic nature project, SNaP, agri project. There will be funding available through the Department of agriculture and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. On the agri side, I can see SNaPs taking off quite soon.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Something we have looked at as a committee, and Mr. Kinsella will be aware of this from our previous committee report, is the LIFE scheme and the schemes under that. We know that is a scheme which is in itself potentially somewhat under threat at European level. How important are schemes such as that or the potential for schemes such as that? From Mr. Kinsella's perspective, can we point to models elsewhere on things like the LIFE scheme or like ring-fenced biodiversity and funding that links in with the farming sector and reward and encourage shifts in practice?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
There have been two previous LIFE applications made for Lady's Island Lake and the wider lagoons in Wexford. Unfortunately, they did not get through the pass level. The funding is quite substantial for farmers' supports and that type of thing. The EIP agri model has really turned the wheels in terms of any agency or any local authority working with farmers. Historically, every local authority looked at regulation and prosecution. The agri EIP model really pushes the scope that is there for any local authority. Wexford County Council has been the only local authority to lead on an EIP project. These are lessons learned for us and what we can take to Lady's Island Lake. From experience, the EIP agri model stands out a lot.
George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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I will touch on something that Senator Higgins alluded to, in part, which is the connection between the members of Wexford County Council and this issue. I was first elected in 2004 and then left Wexford County Council following my election to the Dáil in November 2024, so I was there for just over 20 years. This was never on the agenda nor, to the best of my knowledge, was it ever discussed at Wexford County Council. There are lessons we need to learn from that too, that had the membership of Wexford County Council been made aware of the extent of the issue, perhaps we could have tackled it earlier. It needs to be recognised that the members of Wexford County Council, in the first instance, must have ownership of this and be armed with knowledge of what is actually happening.
I presume the witnesses have a plan to interact with the council. I consulted a number of my previous colleagues and ran it by Councillor Byrne there too. The death of Lady's Island Lake appears to have crept up on elected representatives quite suddenly. We must be cognisant of that. Councillor Carthy is a local councillor who works hard for the area of Lady's Island Lake. I cannot speak for Councillor Carthy, but I am sure if he had knowledge of the difficulties at Lady's Island Lake, it would have been high on the agenda of Wexford County Council. We must be cognisant of bringing the information to elected representatives as part of the whole process. I agree with Mr. Kinsella about the work we did at Duncannon and the tremendous success there. Had we been armed with the knowledge ten years ago, we would have been further down the road. It is something to be cognisant of.
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
It is now a standing item at our strategic policy committee, at our regular environment meetings and at senior management level too. We are represented at all that. I take the Deputy's point on that. At any stage, bringing the lake back would have been at this level of interaction. It is not something that-----
George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)
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It took the highlighting of the death of it to bring it to this stage.
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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How are the buffer zones policed?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
The nitrates action plan would be headed up by the Departments of housing and agriculture. They have a nitrates expert working group that looks at all these buffers. The local authorities enforce them under the national agricultural inspection programme. That is headed by the EPA, as is the national inspection plan. Every local authority has been set a target number of farm inspections every year.
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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If a buffer zone is set out, is that fenced off, or how is it set up?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
It depends on the set-up. Derogation farms are required to have all their watercourses fenced at a distance of 1.5 m. They are also required to have drinking points like water troughs in excess of 20 m away. Organic manure applications range from 5 m to 10 m or more. If you are in an area that is an abstraction point for a population of more than 500, you could be in the 100 m bracket for the buffer zone from that abstraction point.
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Kinsella spoke about 12 streams feeding into the lake and some being more polluted than others. What is the process in diverting the ones that are more polluted? He is saying there is an intersection mitigation.
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, diversion. Where does it go?
Mr. Eoin Kinsella:
The watercourses cannot be diverted, unfortunately. It is a natural flow process that enters the lake. As a baseline, you look at compliance with gap regulations first, then at the various mitigation measures to lower that nitrate level. It comes back to the team of ASSAP advisers on the ground, who look at nutrient or nitrogen use efficiency and the nutrient management plan. Regarding spreading practices, it is about the right time, the right place and the right volume. Those are all measures. Regarding enforcement, we ensure that the farmer is staying in excess of 3 m for chemical fertiliser application, or 5 m to 10 m for application of soiled water but, unfortunately, you cannot divert a natural river.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the strategic oversight group for coming here today. There are many groups working with the witnesses. They mentioned parks, the EPA and a host of other groups. I ask the witnesses to thank those groups on our behalf for their work to date. It is great to see the strategic oversight group up and running. I thank Wexford County Council for hosting us here. When we had the session in the committee room, there was a question in my mind about whether anybody would step in to take it on. To be fair, Mr. Hore put his hand up on behalf of Wexford County Council and said it would run with it, which was a vital intervention from our perspective. This is the first time an Oireachtas committee has ever been in the sunny south east. We are here because we see this project and initiative as having the potential to be an exemplar for dealing with water body quality in the future.
We will support the witnesses in all their work but we will also challenge them, as they will probably understand, where we feel there are issues that are not addressed or where they are not making progress in certain areas. That is part of our role. The witnesses should rest assured that they have the full support of the committee, but we will be taking a very close interest in their progress. I ask that we get a written report from them in six months about what progress has been made in the interim. We hope they will be back in Leinster House in a year for a follow-up session and another update on progress and where we are going. We have many water body issues in parts of the country but this is an opportunity, resources are being put on the table and the committee is very interested. Do any members want to add anything?
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I agree with everything the Chair said. I am worried about the lack of an ecological component. I know this will come down to funding too, but potentially the committee could write to the Minister for heritage to request that some additional funding be given, which I imagine he would like to see.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Is that agreed? Agreed.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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It goes without saying, but this is a collaboration. We are working together here. It is not about us trying to catch out a local authority or group of stakeholders. This can be used as an example right across the country. It is an important exercise. Those metrics the witnesses referred to, whether from nutrients, nitrates, ecological or otherwise, will be important. It may get worse before it gets better, but at least if the resources and measurements are there, we can progress this in the right direction.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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The witnesses might get correspondence back from the committee when we finish our discussions about things that struck us from the session. We are pushing on issues like the ecology question and giving such a focus to Lady's Island Lake because, while it may be an exemplar, it intersects with many issues. This is one where we are diving deep. It intersects with questions of nature restoration, water quality and the path forward for what will have to be a shift in agriculture and agricultural practices, from climate, sustainability and nature perspectives.
It is an intersection of a number of very layered interests that the committee has. We have had so many sessions since the Lady's Island hearings. We had sessions on flooding, water quality and a number of areas that intersect with both. It is important, and I think we would like to see all those other heavily modified rivers right across Ireland brought back to a decent standing.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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We will publish the witnesses opening statement on the website. I thank them for being here today. We will suspend to allow the changeover of witnesses.
Mr. Eamonn Hore:
If I may just make a final comment, I thank the Chair and the committee for their very supportive comments. It is important to take on board the ecology. I thank the members for their support on that. It will close off the final gap. That is very important.
The Senator mentioned various things crossing over. There was flooding on Lady's Island this year. You have the pilgrimage, so there are the religious and the historic aspects. There are many things that interact. We take that on board. It is an exciting project. I think the committee will be happy with how we progress. I thank everyone for their support.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Hore.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I remind all members and witnesses that they must turn on their microphones before they speak and turn them off when finished.
For our second session, we will be examining progress at Lady's Island Lake with two local groups. From the Save Lady's Island Lake campaign group, I welcome Mr. Peadar McDonald, chairperson, and Dr. Ciara Murphy, secretary. From the Lady's Island Lake drainage committee, I welcome: Mr. Ger Carthy, cathaoirleach of the Rosslare municipal group, Mr. David Ormonde, Mr. Michael Vaughen, Mr. Richard Davis and Mr. Jim Hurley.
I will again read the note on privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity, by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to that unidentifiable person or entity they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
I will now invite the witnesses to make an opening statement that will last a maximum of five minutes. First will be the Save Lady's Island Lake campaign.
Dr. Ciara Murphy:
I thank the Cathaoirleach for having us here at the committee. Save Lady's Island Lake is a community-led volunteer group formed in 2025 in response to the ongoing ecological crisis at Lady's Island Lake in County Wexford. Lady's Island Lake is a unique coastal lagoon, a designated special area of conservation and a special protected area. To date, we have gathered over 1,100 signatures on a petition, hosted public meetings, engaged with elected representatives at local and national level and engaged with experts in order to understand and communicate to the public what is happening to the lake. We really appreciate the opportunity to speak here today.
In 1983, The People newspaper reported that Lady’s Island Lake was “almost a cess pool” and was being shamefully destroyed by pollution from agricultural practices. Between 1984 and 2006, ten water quality reports containing recommendations in respect of remedial action were provided to Wexford County Council. The Environmental Protection Agency's CLEAR report, published in January 2025, found that water quality had deteriorated significantly since the 1980s. It reported that up to 60 tonnes of nitrates enter the lake every year, mainly from agricultural run-off. Lagoon-specific biodiversity has also declined sharply. This reflects the cumulative impact of decades of inaction and indifference to damaging farming practices in the catchment.
This is a 40-year failure, not a recent crisis. It is a symptom of systemic failure and under-resourcing. National bodies with responsibility for the health of the lake have not succeeded in preventing this pollution. Locally, Wexford County Council failed to act on the pre-2006 reports and has not adequately monitored the lake in the 20 years since, although I acknowledge the recent work outlined in the chamber earlier.
We ask whether this Government and the agencies involved genuinely intend to fix the problem, and whether they intend to do so without further delay. A fund of €34 million was allocated to an EU LIFE project that was intended to protect and restore habitats at the Lady’s Island and Tacumshin coastal lagoons, as well as peatland bogs. This was due to start in January 2024, yet very few details are publicly available on the specific actions planned or the funding allocation for Lady’s Island Lake. Our group submitted parliamentary questions. The answers to them revealed some details, but the public should be kept informed.
There is also a dearth of information regarding what water quality testing and inspections have taken place in the catchment since January 2025 and by whom these were carried out. If testing has occurred, what do the results show? Why have those results not been made available to the community? What special measures are in place to protect this special area of conservation? How are those measures monitored? Is Ireland meeting its obligations under the EU directives on water quality and protected habitats? Is the nitrates derogation, which this Government lobbied strongly for in Europe, compatible with any genuine intention to restore the lake? What is being done currently to stop pollution entering the lake?
To date, an absence of overall responsibility has been used as a justification for inaction by Wexford County Council and various State agencies. It is now accepted that this is not good enough, and there has been progress. There is, however, still a lack of information regarding who is in charge. Who currently has responsibility for ensuring that all State agencies with roles in respect of the Lady’s Island Lake catchment area are fully in compliance with the provisions of existing legislation? How are transparency and accountability between agencies built into an action plan that is capable of restoring the lake to pristine condition? The details of that plan are urgently required. What remedial action targets will be included? What are the timescales for delivering those targets? How often will progress be reviewed and what is the overall project timeline? Will there be a clear and sustained focus on water quality testing in areas identified by the EPA as having the highest pollution impact potential? If not, why are early and targeted reductions in pollution not being prioritised and who, where or what is being prioritised instead?
We also need clarity on whether the success of an action plan that has no statutory basis will depend on voluntary co-operation from landowners within the catchment. What public consultation processes will be in place before the plan is finalised and when it is being implemented? The local community and the wider public deserve answers. They have been waiting for decades.
What is required as a matter of urgency is clear support from our elected representatives and the relevant Ministers to ensure that the council and other agencies carry out their duties to improve and protect water quality. This needs to be backed by the political will to compel agencies to act to enforce existing law and to ensure that funding allocated in respect of this lake delivers real, measurable restoration in conjunction with appropriate nature-based solutions and compatible farming activities, including an urgent reduction in nitrates pollution.
The warning bells have been ringing in respect of Lady’s Island Lake since 1983. We could be an exemplar for national progress on ecological habitat and water quality restoration. We are calling on this committee to act on this before it is too late.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank Dr. Murphy and call Mr. Ger Carthy to make the opening statement on behalf of the Lady's Island Lake drainage committee.
Mr. Ger Carthy:
I thank the Cathaoirleach. As a member of Wexford County Council, I just want to take this opportunity to welcome him and the joint Oireachtas committee here today to bring some serious priority to Lady's Island Lake.
Lady's Island Lake is a State foreshore. Ownership is vested in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Water inputs to the lake always exceed water outputs which results in the lake flooding over time. Since the lake is marginally higher than the mean sea level, floodwater can overtop the fringing barrier and flow to the sea by means of gravity fall, scouring out a breach through the sandy gravel as it runs. Local people imitated that natural process by digging an artificial channel across the barrier to discharge pent-up floodwaters. The procedure is known locally as cutting the lake. Historical records show that the practice was well-established in the mid-17th century. The barrier is normally breached in early spring, and the water level drops from its winter maximum of over 5 m to about 3 m. Seawater enters through the open breach at high tide. As the natural action of the sea plugs the breach, the water level usually stabilises at around 4 m, slightly above the mean high water of spring tides.
The practice of cutting the lake by a workforce of local men with shovels continued to 1954, when Wexford County Council took control of breaching by using a dragline. In the past, the barrier was breached every seven to eight years. Later, it was done every three to four years. Since 1954, Wexford County Council has cut the lake more or less on an annual basis. In 1986, the lake was designated a special protection area, SPA, for wild birds. In 1988, the National Parks and Wildlife Service felt that breaching the barrier was not compatible with an SPA designation and asked Wexford County Council to stop cutting. The Council complied, and the barrier was not breached in 1989. In 1990, frustrated by the absence of any plan and fearing flooding as water levels rose, local interests organised a cut. In an attempt to regularise matters, a meeting of all interested parties was held on 24 July 1990. The outcome was that the Lady’s Island Lake drainage committee was formed to manage the cutting of the lake. The committee was chaired by Councillor Leo Carthy, my late father, and was constituted as a subcommittee of the district committee of Wexford County Council.
The main stakeholders represented on the lake drainage committee are local farmers, landowners, the local parish priest, Our Lady's Island pilgrimage committee, Our Lady's Island game protection association, Wexford County Council, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and other interested parties.
On 13 March 1997 public notice was given that it was proposed to designate the lake barrier and adjoining areas as a candidate for special area of conservation, SAC. In 1998 consulting engineers were commissioned by the OPW and the NPWS to make recommendations regarding drainage. The consultants favoured a pipeline under the barrier. The plan was amended and refined on several occasions over 20 years. On 3 March, driven by the lake drainage committee, in 2021 planning permission was granted for two pipelines followed by a foreshore lease on 18 October 2024. However, hydrological modelling of the lagoon from the CLEAR project showed that while replacing the present system of the barrier breaching with a sub-barrier pipeline was considered feasible from a flood management perspective, it would radically reduce salinity in the lagoon to the extent that the water body would be more or less a shallow freshwater lake and would no longer qualify as a lagoon. Consequently, the traditional cut continues as salinity issues are being addressed. The aim of the lake drainage committee continues to be its original 1990 remit. It manages the cutting of the lake while at the same time provides a forum for stakeholders to discuss the many varied challenges that face Lady's Island Lake. The lake drainage committee is justly proud of the success it has achieved over the years in managing the important resource, conflict resolution and education on biodiversity conservation.
I welcome my colleagues from Lady's Island Lake drainage committee: Mr. Jim Hurley, a long-standing member, Mr. Michael Vaughan, a long-standing member and substantial farmer, Mr. Richard Davis, a long-standing member, landowner and former tourism business owner, and David Ormonde, long-standing member of the lake drainage committee.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Members have five minutes, with Senator Noonan up first.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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I thank the witnesses for their opening statements. The issue around public engagement goes back to 1983. The issue now around public engagement relates to information sharing of data - we had it in the last session as well - and wider participation of the local community. Is that something the witnesses believe should happen now in tandem with the baseline work and the scientific data-gathering that is under way? Should there be a wider forum for stakeholder engagement?
Dr. Ciara Murphy:
We feel strongly that public engagement should be looked into in a significant way. This is a situation in which there is both an abundance and a dearth of information. In those gaps is an opportunity for misinformation and disinformation and for people to panic or get the wrong impression of what is being done. There is some really interesting and good work happening. It is really important for faith and trust in the system people are aware of what is happening, how and when and that they feel they have an opportunity to be consulted and to lend expertise, where relevant, into the process. There has been a lack of trust in the process because we have seen action plans before, historically, as Senator Noonan rightly said, going back to the 1980s, which were not significantly acted upon. It is always reassuring to hear a plan for progress but obviously the deliverables are the important thing. Although progress may be slow initially and might feel quite micro, where it is meaningful it is important that the public is made aware of what is happening, why it is happening, who is responsible and who is enforcing or overseeing that. That would restore faith in the process overall.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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Does Dr. Murphy have an idea of how that would be shaped? Does the Save Lady's Island Lake committee have a view as to how such a broad consultative forum and information-sharing with the wider public might look in terms of engagement?
Dr. Ciara Murphy:
Yes. I might speak first of all to what it looks like for a broader public-based system. Mr. McDonald may have something to contribute also. It is quite hard to find information at the moment in regard to what is happening and by whom because there are so many intersecting agencies concerned. It could be really useful if the organisers and overseers, Wexford County Council, could provide a central website or something like that where all information can be held and categorised so that the public is aware of it and to make the public aware of that in a really accessible way. We also have concerns around the statutory implications of the action plan. Where things cannot be compelled, there is a voluntary process. We believe a public consultation process open to the public for a significant period of time is reasonable in order to inform that, as stakeholders in the local area and further afield will have impressions that are really useful to inform how that goes forward.
Mr. Peadar McDonald:
Without the CLEAR report there would not have been as much knowledge or action taken. The more information that is shared, the more action will happen. Progress has been very slow even though there has been some progress in recent times. Our members are frustrated by the lack of progress and action over decades. We are concerned that is going to continue. One of the main ways of avoiding that is to broadcast what is happening. I am not sure of the exact format but it can be via local media or social media. We are not worried about how it happens. The consultation element, particularly before the plan is finalised, is important because once the plan is in place it is difficult to get anything added to it. We also have ideas on how to deal with the ecological status of the lake, possibly with organic-type farming and promotion of local farming produce, perhaps using LEADER funding. We are not just looking at it from a water pollution angle but we feel so strongly that if the water pollution elements are not dealt with initially, the other things will not happen, or will not happen quickly. Waiting for five or 20 years is too late as far as we are concerned.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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Does Mr. McDonald believe there is an opportunity here to have broader public engagement? This is the start of biodiversity week, for instance. Perhaps there is an opportunity to bring the local community and the broader community on board? Awareness days, information days and talks could be part and parcel of the work that is being done.
Mr. Peadar McDonald:
That is a very good point. I am not sure how much information the local community is getting. We would like to see the reports or statements that are being presented today. We have not seen them yet either. There is a lot of information that people would be interested in to show what is happening on the part of the council and the steering group. That is a start. It might be no harm to have a public meeting so that people can see what is happening on the ground. That is a good place to start. We might then get feedback from the local people on what is planned or needed.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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I have just one more question. I am not fully aware of the issues around the management of the water levels and the work the committee does, but separately in regard to the management of water levels for the NPWS for tern nesting sites, how much interaction is there in relation to that? What impact does that have on the dynamic of the water levels in maintaining the brackish-----
Mr. Ger Carthy:
The lake drainage committee is made up of members of NPWS, the local ranger and the regional manager. The contents of those meetings relate to the tern population and the availability of the islands for the nesting season. Flood management is authorised by the lake drainage committee and conducted by Wexford County Council. If the cut is required for the tern, that is done and funded by the NPWS. It is a moving feast in relation to all the different agencies involved in the lake drainage committee. In regard to the information piece, there are representatives from Wexford County Council, NPWS, the OPW and all the different local committees. I am conscious that the word "compelling" can be difficult. I prefer to work on consensus. As a local representative there, we have been representing the people there for nearly 60 years, I believe they are in the business of consensus. Even the farming community, which gets a lot of bad publicity in relation to contamination, etc., is on board here. That is the way we want to keep it. We do not want a situation where we are compelling. We prefer to seek consensus.
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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The representatives were present for the meeting earlier. Did anything jump out from that? I am interested in getting their comments on that. Were there any gaps or anything they would like to highlight? Obviously, there is a lot more information.
Dr. Ciara Murphy:
We share the same concerns as Deputy Whitmore around the ecological focus being notably absent. We think of habitats, nature-based solutions and the nature restoration plan. There is an opportunity to learn across those contexts. The Chair made an observation on transparency in terms of reports published, when they are published and how the information is held.
We are encouraged to hear about the progress but we feel there are issues with the derogation and ecology. Deputy Mythen asked about enforcement and how we could correlate information. I believe it was Senator Higgins who asked about derogation and farmer compliance. That is all important information we need to know. If the indications are positive, that would really boost trust and faith. If they are not, though, people just want to understand and appreciate what is going on. They feel there is almost a cloak of secrecy or something going on with this.
For laypeople who are not scientists, the information needs to be made accessible to them in a way that is understood. Senator Noonan suggested using biodiversity week or access to schools to channel that information so that people feel informed and can be active in their public areas on these issues.
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Does anybody else want to contribute?
Mr. Ger Carthy:
There are many moving parts in relation to Lady’s Island Lake. We have progressed a permanent pipe solution for the level of the lake. At the eleventh hour, however, salinity became an issue, so we had to go back for another 12 months of salinity testing. That was what the NPWS brought to it, but there are many different agencies involved in the cake and we just need to someone to bake the cake.
Members will see the natural beauty of Lady's Island Lake when they visit and we look forward to welcoming them there at 2 o'clock today. Really, we have polished the bonnet of the car but we never looked at the engine to see how it is running. This is not going to cost €750,000. Mitigating and ameliorating the issue could cost millions of euro, and possibly tens of millions of euro.
I agree with Dr. Murphy that the information piece needs to be improved but someone must steer that, whether it is Wexford County Council, the Department, the NPWS, lake drainage or whoever. It is a piece that needs to be dealt with. There is no secrecy about the drive and determination of Mr. Hore, Mr. Kinsella or any of the lads to deal with this situation. It is not going to be sorted in a week, month or year, though. It could be a decade. I would like to see joined-up thinking. The emphasis that the members bring to this as an Oireachtas committee is unbelievable because we were paddling on our own there for a while. This meeting is very important.
There are many moving parts. How do we put SACs, the NPWS, water quality, ecological and other factors together? Members know what I mean; I do not have to tell them.
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Absolutely. I do not want to put Mr. Hurley on the spot but I would like to hear what his thoughts are following this morning because he has been reporting on and trying to highlight this issue for 40 years. If anyone knows the lake, it is him. Are there any gaps he would like to see included?
Mr. Jim Hurley:
I have been involved for a long time. As Mr. Hore said, it has taken 40 years to arrive at this point. I was at the first meeting in 1984 and have been at all the meetings since. There have been several reports, a tremendous amount of talk and very little action, and we have moved painfully slowly to the point we are at now. I am optimistic that something meaningful is happening at the moment.
The presentation from the strategic oversight group earlier showed that a tremendous amount of work was going on in the background. However, there is a huge mismatch between that work and the public perception. I am interested in Lady's Island Lake but all I have seen publicly have been the seven recommendations of the joint Oireachtas committee and a chart showing the results of water sampling in the feeder streams from March 2025, which showed that 11 of the 12 feeder streams failed the nitrates test. The third thing I saw was the advertisement in the newspaper for the project manager. Apart from that, I have seen nothing. There is a huge mismatch between the tremendous work that is going on behind the scenes and what is being communicated publicly. I agree with Senator Noonan that there is a great need for awareness days to let people know what is happening. However, I am tremendously optimistic that something very meaningful is about to happen.
Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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It is interesting that the public information aspect has come up from everyone. That is certainly something. Sometimes when doing projects, that element can be forgotten. One can get stuck into the 95% but the 5% that is the communication piece can be forgotten. It is important that that is being brought up. I thank the witnesses.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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There has obviously been engagement, including in the work. The concern and care about Lady's Island Lake and its significance are not confined to landowners. Rather, it is of significance nationally, locally and to a wider community of concern. I would be interested to hear from Dr. Murphy and Mr. McDonald on that wider pool of stakeholders who are concerned and care about it, and the need for their engagement.
I would like to hear more on the nitrates derogation. The witnesses will be aware that one of the recommendations in our committee report was the idea of new regulations and standards for practices in general for farming near bodies of water. I am surprised to hear that there are still large dairy farms getting the nitrates derogation that are not in compliance near Lady's Island Lake. Obviously, something needs to be addressed. That is one area of compliance. The question the committee put forward is the idea of having new and stronger standards in these areas as well as actual supports, incentives and resources being allocated to farmers to meet those. Will witnesses comment on that element and the ecological piece a bit more?
Moving to the drainage committee, the CLEAR report must have felt for a moment felt like a setback. However, in another way, it is what has focused this renewed and integrated action, which seems like the kind of action that is needed. It would be a very serious concern if a reduction in salinity was to change the character and nature of the lagoon. Have the breaching practices been considered from that environmental and ecological perspective? They sound less intrusive than the proposed pipelines. How is that best practised? Is it about reducing it so that it does not become annual and goes back to being periodic, for example?
The drainage committee has such a deep, long history and such an engagement with the local landowners. Have the witnesses had much engagement around that shift in farming practice? I know their focus is on the historic cutting, but because they are engaging with so many stakeholders where there will need to be that shift in farming practice, is that discussion coming up among the committee, and has there been much engagement? I am a little concerned that there seems to have been an information gap. Perhaps the witnesses could comment on those pieces.
Dr. Ciara Murphy:
I will speak to the community stakeholder element and then Mr. McDonald will talk a little about the nitrates and the ecological element. The local connection to the lake cannot be over-represented. There is also a religious component with the pilgrimage and everything happening every year. Our group stood on Wexford Quay during the Fleadh last summer - Deputy Whitmore joined us for a period - and we were able to collect 1,100 signatures from people from all over the country and, in fact, the world who had a vested interest in this lake, including people who remembered coming down to it as children and people who holiday regularly. While there is dismay, I think there is also hope in the fact that maybe if enough resources and enough collaboration can be put into this project, we can find out and tease through these elements such that there is hope not only for the lake but also for other issues locally and nationally.
In addition, the CLEAR report and the reporting around it came while we were having a wider conversation on water quality and pollution nationally. Lady's Island Lake is not out on its own in that regard. The conversations that we were having on Wexford Quay and that we have had at all our public meetings are "This is happening near me", "There is a river near me that used to look like this and now looks like that" and "There is a lake near me that has algae on it and we do not understand what to do or what is going on with it". People feel their natural environment keenly, people are really connected to it and people such as Mr. Hurley who have seen something happen over the course of decades are innate experts in seeing and feeling the difference and the change there.
I will let Mr. McDonald respond to the rest of the Senator's questions, if that is okay.
Mr. Peadar McDonald:
The derogation issue is a national issue and what we can do on that is outside our control. It seems to be a contradiction that on one hand the State is encouraging the use of as much nitrates as possible to boost agriculture or food production yet, on the other, the water pollution impacts are not being catered for or do not seem to be catered for. We think something the committee could look at is how you try to balance those two and that conflict. To bring in the nature restoration law, there is an advisory committee that has made some very good recommendations on the way the restoration law could be implemented, and some of the recommendations could have been written for our lake in Lady's Island. There are very relevant and very good solutions or proposals there as to how to progress for everybody involved in Lady's Island.
Mr. Ger Carthy:
Lady's Island was very prominent in the question about the derogation. I think the Minister for agriculture was having some issues pertaining to securing the derogation. It is certainly on the agenda. That said, the Senator asked us about the lake drainage and the permanent solution. I will bring in Mr. Ormonde, who has a long association with that, on the current permanent solution and the issues pertaining to why it has not progressed.
Mr. David Ormonde:
The lake drainage committee about four years ago dedicated a subcommittee to meet with the NPWS to draw up a programme for a permanent solution to the drainage of Our Lady's Island Lake rather than breaching the barrier every year. We had come to the conclusion that breaching the barrier every year contributed to the sediment problem in the lake. Local people have noted over recent years that the bit of the lake has risen by approximately 3 cm to 5 cm due to the fact that when the barrier is breached the sand that is taken out of what we call the cut is sidelined, and with the first storm that came after the cut all that sand was washed into the lake. That was causing a lack of growth in the particular area but it had a side effect of some good because last year during a storm a new sandbank was created in the lake from just inside the cut, on which numerous terns are nesting this year. That was a plus.
Going back to what our thoughts were on the long-term solution, we felt that the pipeline was the answer because at the cut, which was approximately 200 m wide and 150 m from the sea to the lake, it has dropped in height by approximately 7 m over the past 20 years. You may say there is no bank to keep the sea out, but we continued with our efforts anyway and we came to the conclusion that a pipeline would be the most satisfactory outcome for it. A problem arose, however, as was pointed out, over the salinity levels. Salinity levels have to be measured, so that put back the prospect of a pipeline by at least 12 months. What we are concerned about at this point in time is that the planning for the pipeline expires in September, so we either go for an extension or we have to reapply. We are not that happy about that type of situation because we felt we were moving on and now we have met with a blockade. It will not have an effect of reducing the pollution from the point of view that if you have a stagnant pool and if you leave the stagnant pool lying long enough, you will get pollution, whether there are any contaminants going into it or not. Water by its own nature becomes impure. Lady's Island Lake is a stagnant pool and when you breach it, if you do not breach it to drain it, you only add to the problem. When it is breached, if it is not let tide for at least two or three weeks, you do not get all the pollutants out of the lake, and that is where the problem has lain over recent years. The lake has not been drained completely, so the well in the bottom of the lake is still holding the contaminants, and all they are doing then for the next year is topping that up. Our main project is hopefully to see that the pipeline is implemented.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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It may not be the pipeline, but one thing that has shifted recently is the focus on nature-based solutions. Of course, it is not solely a matter of the drainage. We see nitrates pollution in our rivers and our lakes, but nitrates pollution in terms of the marine environment is also an issue. It is not something you can solely wash away. That is the input part, which we still have to work on. In parallel, given that concern, is there consideration of what other nature-based solutions might look like in terms of that? It is not, of course, a drainage-out piece; it is also about salt water in. That is part of the ecological piece that is needed. I am sure this new agenda is frustrating for some, but it looks like the inputs piece is finally getting tackled.
Is there scope for it? Would it be useful to have resources that might begin to examine a new third strand of some other kind of nature-based solution or other solutions that could address this?
Mr. Ger Carthy:
We certainly would welcome that, but even if you looked at Lady’s Island Lake over the past 15 years, the amount of reeds now alive in the lake is unbelievable. They have gone from a couple of acres to probably 30 or 40 acres. That tells its own story about what is driving the growth of those. You have salinity, sediment and a precarious situation between the sea and the lake because the barrier is so low at the moment. We have overtopping, so during a storm the overtopping fills the lake and so we have fill and we have issues with the road and with the treatment plant. The islands are not available for the terns. We have to manage all those different moving parts so it is about putting that all together. I would certainly welcome a nature-based approach to this but there is a load of moving parts that all need to be put together.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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It points again to that need for the ecology strand
Mr. Ger Carthy:
Even if you look at the permanent solution that is designed, permission was granted and ministerial permission was granted for it and then we had to go back and look at salinity. We also had to relook at the emergency cut to the side of that, if required, if we could not get enough water out through the permanent pipe solution that was proposed. This is a moving feast.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Carthy.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Lawlor recalled there has never been a debate on this in the Chamber as long as he could remember. Since it was designated an SPA 40 years ago, do the witnesses have any thoughts why this was not ever debated in the Chamber?
Mr. Ger Carthy:
My opinion was is one year was let run into the next and then the CLEAR report brought emphasis to it. A number of Members of the Oireachtas raised it. As the saying goes, we are where we are. We are trying to fix that issue now and it starts with €750,000 in initial funding and will cost millions and millions of euro to fix.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Even though the environmental section of the council is aware of it there was not really political or public pressure.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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That is what I was getting to next.
Mr. Ger Carthy:
Let us be fair, the testing was not being conducted to identify the key issues. The farming practices were changing in the context of nitrates. Fertiliser 40 years ago and now are two very different things. We have to balance out a very active agricultural industry in that area through consensus as opposed to compelling. That is where we are.
Mr. Jim Hurley:
We are all on learning curves. I think you have to look at it in the perspective of how awareness has grown over the years. From the mid-17th century until very recently, the whole purpose of draining the lake was for flood relief. Nature never came into it; it was a flood issue. It was only very recently that the ecological side of it was considered.
The SPA has been designated for three qualifying interests and the special protection area for six qualifying interests, so you have nine qualifying interests that are often conflicting with each other. I cannot speak for the NPWS but it prioritised the protection of terns, so we had a very long period where the lake was drained for flood relief. Then the NPWS had a reasonably short period where terns were the priority. Unfortunately, the protection of terns was not helping some of the other qualifying interests. Now we have moved into a third phase where salinity has become the priority in that what makes the lagoon a lagoon is its salinity. Under the EU LIFE SNaP initiative the National Parks and Wildlife Service has funding specifically for Lady’s Island Lake and Tacumshin Lake and, I believe, a restoration project is being worked on. Again, while tremendous work is probably going on in the background, there is very little understanding of what is going to happen. Everything hinges on seeing a plan that will be open to independent assessment and validation.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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On that plan, going back to the communication piece, if we consider how council practice would normally work under Part 8, for example, there would be a public consultation and back and forth and there might be ideas coming from the room on the night. Is that what the witnesses envisage or is it the case that they want a regular and consistent information update?
Dr. Ciara Murphy:
Mr. Hurley, who has essentially been the institutional memory for the lake for the past 40 years, talks about these conflicting factors between qualifying interests. Who is managing that and who has the power to untangle that is a key question for us. The information is really important but there has to be sense-making in regard to where these things conflict with one another and that people can understand what an SPA or SPC is. What the European directive responsibility is and how the State is or is not matching with those aims are really important as well.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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What is the frequency of that information updating or reporting to give all stakeholders an opportunity to tie into it while at the same time ensuring that information is accurately reflected?
Mr. Ger Carthy:
That could come from a recommendation from today’s meeting that it either be done on Wexford County Council’s website or as a stand-alone. It does not really matter to me but it is important that people know what is going on.
I would say there is a massive amount of European funding under the LIFE SNaP project that is under-utilised. I got a commitment a number of years ago to apply for that but it did not get going. Covid hit, etc. That is something that Wexford County Council should revisit, first for the substantial European funding but also to assist us in the current situation we find ourselves.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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If it is a standing item on the SPC meeting, and it is a quarterly meeting, surely the obvious option would be the manager’s report on a quarterly basis.
John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Or the chief executive's report.
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank everyone for their statements. I get the feeling that both local organisations here do not feel they are fully at the table. Is there a possibility that some members could be a part of the strategic group? Could they be members?
Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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What do Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Hurley see as the main local challenges being faced at the moment for Lady's Island Lake?
Mr. Ger Carthy:
How to ameliorate and deal with this issue is going to take years to sort out. We need to do that in a way that helps and supports and does not put at a disadvantage all the different stakeholders that feed into that lake, whether that be agriculture or whatever, and how best to do that through consensus. Farming practices are going to be a key part of that and that is going to be a very difficult conversation to have. We have a massive potato growing industry and dairy industry. We have some of the best land in the country. Strawberries and early potatoes are to the forefront and Carne early potatoes are some of the best in the country. That is a difficult conversation that will have to be had at some stage going forward. There is European money and national money and it is about putting this all together through the structures of Wexford County Council, which stepped up almost 12 months ago under the directorship of Mr. Hore.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I thank all our witnesses today. I was quite taken by the tone of despair in the opening statement from Save Lady's Island Lake, and the scepticism. I agree that it is fair comment because for 40 years people have known about this and somehow, mind-bogglingly, nothing has been done about it. I can understand why the group is sceptical about this process and has so many questions about it. I hope that today's session will give some confidence that we and the other bodies involved are taking it seriously. From our session nine months ago or so in the Oireachtas when we first looked at this, one of the biggest issues we found was that there were so many different bodies responsible that no one was responsible. We seem to have cracked that nut now and we have to give credit to Wexford County Council for taking this on. As the Chair said, we need this to work. We are here to support Wexford County Council to the extent possible and obviously to critique, to make sure that the best possible job is done. I see that as the group's role in this as well.
One thing we have to ensure is that there is continued co-operation and that if Wexford County Council is recommending something, the other stakeholders, the other Departments and the other State bodies involved are falling into line, so to speak, and taking an active part in that. The committee needs to consider how we do that. I do not know whether the steering group has terms of reference or something has been agreed, but in terms of how it operates, ensuring things get done and that the sort of degree of co-operation we are supposed to be seeing actually comes to fruition, is something we need to think about.
Many of the questions in the opening statement mirror the ones that we have, including the details for the plan, what remedial action targets will be included, the timescales for delivering these targets and how often progress will be reviewed. These all relate back to accountability, which is massively important in this. That is why I echo the other calls for more transparency about the report and the process and to have targets from the outset, whether they are met or not. We all acknowledge that this will take time. There are so many embedded problems here that even by starting to measure them, they may not improve over time. That has got to be where we are with this. It is about accountability and making sure that we can continue to monitor that as a committee.
Does the Save Lady's Island Lake group have any suggestions in terms of remedial action targets?
Mr. Peadar McDonald:
None in particular except to say that we want to see some fairly quick short-term results coming out of the action plan. We understand that it will be a complex problem to fix but if we do not get some short-term results, it reduces the impetus of the campaign. We also need to see more resources, whether it is staffing or funding, probably for all the agencies because they do not tend to say that they have not got enough resources. I am not sure whether the committee has the wherewithal to ensure that happens but at least that message should go out. If there are not sufficient resources and funding for farmers, the agencies and whatever groups are involved, everyone will struggle to make changes.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I put the same question to the drainage committee. What are its suggestions for short-term measures that could be taken to help turbocharge this process a little bit?
Mr. Jim Hurley:
I cannot see any short-term measures that can be taken. It is a very long-term issue and it is being addressed at the moment. In my view, the need is to support the work the strategic oversight group is doing and to try to accelerate the process on the production of the plan and the opening of it to public consultation.
Mr. Ger Carthy:
I emphasise the importance of the oversight group and the reports it will produce. There should be senior decision makers from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Office of Public Works and all the different Departments around the table to expedite that and see if we can move on the road to recovery.
Cathal Byrne (Fine Gael)
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I thank both groups for coming in and for their engagement on this. The passion they have for the project is very obvious. I have a couple of quick questions. Both groups have spoken about the frustration in terms of finding out what is going on, the delays and the years that went by and trying to get a better understanding of where things are at. Obviously, coming to a meeting like this is very important, but there will not be an Oireachtas committee meeting here every six months or whatever. Going forward, I fully agree with having the report and the update from the council's strategic policy committee on environment coming in. If that SPC were discussing Lady's Island Lake, should the groups be brought in as a part of that, or is that happening at the moment? I know Councillor Carthy can attend any meeting of the council, but it is in terms of attending on behalf of the two separate committees as opposed to his own role as a councillor.
Dr. Ciara Murphy:
We have been seeking a meeting with the SPC and we are hoping to get something on the schedule soon. We feel that part of our remit as the campaign group is to be the middle person between the really interesting and compelling conversations we are having today and the local and national groups that are invested in the work. If we are in the room we can share that information, and as well as the council with its responsibilities be a conduit for that. We would very much welcome being invited to sit and participate in that.
Cathal Byrne (Fine Gael)
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Many people spoke about the different agencies involved. Mr. McDonald said the agencies could benefit from better staffing and better resources. What agencies is he talking about there and where are things falling down?
Mr. Peadar McDonald:
I get the impression from watching the action or lack of action, over the last 40 years, that it is not just a question of lack of responsibility. I know that staff have changed between the different agencies, particularly specialist staff, and that there are not enough qualified people. Lady's Island Lake is only one water body in the county. There is the River Slaney, the River Barrow and several other catchments that all need to be inspected regularly. We are concerned that there are not enough staff to do all the work, especially the water pollution inspections, which we feel are an area that has been neglected, as has enforcement action. A carrot is fine but if there is not some kind of penalty or incentive to change old habits, it will not happen quickly.
I cannot say exactly which agencies, but I get the impression that most of them are struggling, or maybe they just need to focus more on the water quality area. There is also the protection of the lake from the NPWS perspective.
Mr. Ger Carthy:
Any local authority or Department would welcome extra staffing. I am on the ground and am well aware that there have been many septic tank inspections over the last months since the inception of this group, and there are also many farm inspections. That is moving in the right direction, but if there could be more staffing at the council level, we would welcome that. The local authority is only doing about 120 septic tank inspections a year, which is a very small number, but farm inspections are progressing apace in that general area. I agree with Senator Noonan about the need to provide 100% grant aid for tanks that fail in the catchment of Lady's Island Lake and any other area across the country pertaining to an SAC or SPA.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the two groups for coming in and for their detailed statements. Everybody is on the front foot and positive about what is happening. I thank them for that. They heard this morning about the strategic oversight group. How would they characterise their engagement with that group? I think I know what I am going to hear but I would like to ask them anyway.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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From what I am hearing, it sounds like groups would welcome better engagement. There is an acknowledgement, based on what we heard this morning, that good work is being done, or a plan is emerging for it, but engagement is required with groups like the witnesses'. That is something for the committee to consider.
Mr. Hurley made an interesting point about the lake. A human intervention has been happening with drainage on the lake for the last period. It seems to have gone from being done for farm drainage, to parks, then prioritising terns, which was a different strategy, and now we are talking about salination. There is a fundamental decision to be made about the long-term priority rationale across all of those different priorities. Ideally, you would end up with limited human intervention. How will we get to that position? How do the two groups see that issue being resolved and getting to a long-term view of the rationale and priority?
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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That is ecological.
Dr. Ciara Murphy:
We want to have the information. We also want to feel hopeful and engaged in the process. Nature-based, evidence-based solutions gained through expertise are the way to inform the plan. I echo Mr. Hurley's suggestion to have the plan open to public consultation as soon as possible, drawing in that expertise from relevant stakeholders. We are relying on the SPA and SAC status, too, in order to leverage European directives. It could be a way forward to manage that.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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How is Dr. Murphy reconciling whether it is drainage, salination, wildlife or ecology?
Dr. Ciara Murphy:
It is all of them. How we stack that and intervene is down to the science that we have to rely on. Wexford County Council said that, by the end of the year, it would have much more information. Once we have it to hand, we can prioritise that. I echo Deputy Whitmore's concerns about the absence of an ecological focus. That has to be a significant strand.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Do the witnesses understand the point that Mr. Hurley and I made that relative priority has been awarded to certain matters, which has driven the intervention at the lake, and that we need to settle long term on what that will be?
Mr. Ger Carthy:
The priority is the nesting area for terns on Sgarbheen and Inish islands. Flooding is the second one. Salinity is an issue pertaining to the permanent solution. For local landowners and, indeed, the road area, flooding is another one. Who makes the ultimate decision and is it based on sediment, salinity, birds or ecology? That is the big question. If you talk to the NPWS, it will tell you it has 300 other similar sites. What is European best practice?
Mr. Jim Hurley:
On the practice of cutting the lake from a salinity point of view, the lake needs to be allowed to empty as much as possible to allow seawater in, but from a tern conservation point of view, that is not helpful. The practice has been to close the cut in the past. The idea of closing the cut was to keep the water level up to protect tern nesting sites. There is a real conflict in that terns are an annex 1 species in the habitats directive. The water level needs to be kept up for them but kept down for the salinity. That is the crux.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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This is fundamental. It is something for us to think about. Obviously, this is not a decision for the committee, but it is a fairly fundamental decision about the long-term approach.
Mr. Peadar McDonald:
From my perspective, we have not discussed it in detail, but it needs to be divided into a number of segments, and water quality is one of the most important, because if the water quality is not improved, the long-term protection of the lake will not happen. The second is drainage, which is an ongoing management issue. It works to a fairly successful degree at the moment, but we do not know what the best solution for long-term planning is. The third is the sediment in the lake.
If it is looked at from those three angles, it might help to clarify what needs to be done.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I have one other comment. I note the request in terms of access to information. We get reports and we publish them on the relatively inaccessible Oireachtas website. It is a good suggestion for local authorities to place an area on their site and publish what should be publicly accessible information, such as their produced reports and all data. We will be taking that away from this committee’s perspective. Are there any final observations?
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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I have one suggestion. It is around public engagement. I am conscious that the Minister announced some funding. A portion of that funding could be used for public participation and engagement. That may require engaging outside consultants to do that work. It would be useful and money well spent, both to keep updating the scientific information as it comes in and to perhaps set up a stakeholder forum outside of the strategic oversight group. That might be useful. Mr. Hurley and I have spoken before about the idea of partnering with some European projects not just in terms of funding, but on information-sharing as to how we best progress some of these issues. I suggest we look at using some of that funding for public participation and engagement, including engagement with schools, community groups, etc., around awareness-raising and public awareness. It is a useful piece of work and it would be money well spent.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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We heard the idea of collective action regarding the issue of septic tanks and looking at trying to push for specific measures. One of the other ideas being brought up was the idea of the feeder streams and the rivers in particular. The Kisha sub-basin was being pulled up in that regard. Both groups work with people around the lake. When it comes to Save Lady’s Island Lake, how much discussion is happening in relation to the feeder streams? I know the focus is for those who are concerned-----
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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We are against the clock, Senator.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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If the witnesses could comment on the feeder stream piece and engagement in that regard.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I will allow a 60-second response from each group.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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We will be publishing the witnesses’ opening statements on the committee’s website. Hopefully, they will be published elsewhere in future as well. On behalf of the committee, I thank the witnesses for being here today and for taking part in the meeting. This meeting now stands adjourned sine die.