Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Last year Ireland secured a nitrates derogation covering the years 2022-2025. The Commission's implementing decision granting that derogation included the condition that Ireland must use specific criteria to conduct a two-year water quality review.

Where that review shows there are polluted waters, or waters at risk of pollution that are not showing signs of improvement, or where worsening trends have occurred over the period 2021 - 2022, the maximum stocking rate for derogation farms must be reduced from 250kg to 220kg livestock manure nitrogen per hectare from 2024.

The EPA undertook this review and provided the results as an Annex to their main report on Nitrogen and Phosphorous concentrations in Irish waters. In accordance with the Commission's Implementing Decision, the EPA review is based on the Nitrates Directive monitoring network.

The EPA also maintain a Water Framework Directive (WFD) monitoring network. This larger network provides a more comprehensive dataset than the Nitrates Directive monitoring dataset.

The difference in the datasets used gives rise to anomalies in the EPA's report for the two-year water quality review; areas that, based on previous water quality monitoring publications by the EPA, would have been expected to fail the Commission's tests have not been included.

If the more comprehensive WFD dataset was used for the Commission's two-year review, more land would likely be bought into the area where derogation farmers will have to reduce their stocking rates. This issue and the anomalies in the report were discussed by the EPA with officials from my Department as well as the Agriculture Water Quality Working Group before the EPA's report was submitted to the European Commission. The EPA acted in accordance with the relevant Commission framework.

The environmental assessment for the interim-review of the Nitrates Action Programme may determine that the best available and most comprehensive dataset is required to be used for the two-year water quality review. Therefore, the map the EPA have published should not be considered to be the final map of land moving to the maximum stocking rate of 220kg N per hectare from 2024.

In March I committed to engaging with the European Commission to seek flexibility regarding their conditionality around the two-year water quality review. This engagement has taken place and will continue, however there is no guarantee that the Commission will agree to re-opening its decision.