Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Exactly two weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency published the report, Water Quality in 2022. It provides an update on the water quality of Ireland's rivers, lakes, estuaries, coastal and groundwaters for that year. The report presents a crucial insight into the state of our watercourses and highlights significant and alarming environmental concerns that require immediate attention. I thank the Business Committee for accommodating my request to debate the EPA's report on water quality in this House today.

The findings of the report, while astounding, were not surprising. Overall, last year, there was no significant change in the biological quality of our rivers or lakes. Any improvements we are seeing in some areas are being obliterated by declines elsewhere. The report finds that the main pressures on water quality are agriculture and discharges from urban wastewater. Nitrate concentrations are too high in 40% of river sites nationally and in 20% of estuarine and coastal water bodies. These elevated levels are found mainly in the south and south east, and this is primarily attributable to intensive agricultural activities on freely draining soils in these areas.

The issuing of the EPA's report coincided with the annual water conference that brought together policy experts, scientists, farmers, politicians and many other stakeholders, including Dr. Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, who was the chair of the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss. Just as with the Environmental Protection Agency, the citizens' assembly also identified that our rivers and water bodies have deteriorated around the country, especially in the south and south east. Dr. Ní Shúilleabháin was in Leinster House today with her colleagues, Dr. Micheál Ó Cinnéide and Dr. James Moran, to present their report. From reading it and from listening to the presentation this morning, we cannot argue with the compelling work they did and the work of the 99 randomly chosen citizens who formed that assembly.

The members of the assembly identified the poor condition of our freshwater systems as an urgent problem that requires an immediate and co-ordinated national response. They made strong recommendations around that. What is clear from their work is that the people consider this to be a high priority and they want us in this House to fix it. With regard to citizens' assemblies, I might comment that despite initial scepticism, we can see they have been a missing piece in our democracy. The work of the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss shows that. They do not usurp or undermine the political system we have. Rather, they are a refinement or an evolution of our political system. The experience to date shows now how important they are to us.

As the chair of the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action, I believe I speak on behalf of the members when I say we are honoured to have the opportunity to engage with the assembly's report. In the autumn, the committee will thoroughly examine that report, deliberate on its recommendations, analyse the progress already made, and identify actions that still need to commence. We will report back to this House and the Upper House before Christmas. We are not going to go over the same ground that the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss went over. We do not have time for that in any case, first, because it is an emergency, but also because the timescale we have been given is just until the end of the year. Our objective is to bring the consensus of that citizens' assembly to a political consensus.

We have a strong and successful precedent with the citizens' assembly on climate change, and that hugely informed the current programme for Government which is turning this country in a very positive direction, notwithstanding how difficult it is. We can trace climate policy all the way back to the citizens' assembly on climate change a number of years ago. It is not going to be easy, and I think everyone in this House needs to understand that and be honest about it. We will fail if we do not seek to include all voices and embrace the diversity of views in the Oireachtas, because there is division and polarisation. That is the nature of politics and, sadly, it is increasingly so. However, politics is also the art of the possible, and the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action has a strong record of hard work and collaboration. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but I can say that we have already begun, and I am confident we will do justice to the extraordinary work of those 99 citizens and the lead team that presented to Members of the Oireachtas this morning.

Coming back to today's topic, the nitrates directive is also an essential part of protecting water. It is designed to prevent nitrogen and phosphorus from polluting our water, and Ireland has secured a derogation to the directive freely since 2007, allowing farming at more intense levels. Approximately 7,300 farmers now farm at this higher intensity, and in light of the recent worrying trends in water quality, this time the European Commission granted us the derogation on the basis that water quality would improve. We can be in no doubt whatsoever that the writing is on the wall here for the future of that derogation because water quality is going in the wrong direction. The same could be said the same about the Arterial Drainage Act 1945, legislation that allows for the ongoing destruction across thousands of kilometres of waterways in Ireland. We can no longer allow the State to actively encourage behaviour that leads to water pollution and the decline in quality of our water bodies. We must pull the brakes now and reverse this worrying trend across our rivers, lakes and marine environments. I hope future generations will look back and see that this was the point where we saved nature and, indeed, saved ourselves.

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