Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, released a report today that found there has been no significant improvement in the biological quality of our rivers or lakes in 2022. Ireland relies heavily on its clean and green image, both for its food production and for its tourism industry. Increasingly, however, the reality is the very opposite and all of our biological and environmental indicators are going in the wrong direction.

In its report today, the EPA has pointed to agriculture as the primary cause for the pollution of our water sources with fertilisers and manure causing increased nitrogen and phosphorus levels. It is important that this House would have a debate around the future of agriculture in Ireland, about a just transition for farmers, and a sustainable future. I am conscious that farmers feel demonised at the moment and that they are constantly in the news with the negative stories about agriculture when there are incredible farmers out there during really incredible work around environmental high-nature value farming and organic farmers. What we need to see from our politicians and from some of the organisations that represent farmers is real leadership around how we are going to reverse the turn of environmental decline and bring those indicators down. We need water and we need our lakes and rivers to be healthy and vibrant. More importantly, for the interests of maintaining our reputation as a food producing nation that also relies heavily on tourism, we all need to show leadership now and start to reverse the trends in our environment.