Ireland still enjoys a reasonably healthy democracy, but we should not underestimate the potential for untruths and wilful ignorance to infect our political discourse.
The Government, on the whole, does not deny climate science. So far so good. But when it comes to water quality, alternative facts are endemic.
I witnessed an example of this on June 5th. The Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon was challenged outside a Department of Agriculture conference by a group of activists from Animal Rebellion over the impact of agricultural run-off into Lady’s Island, an important saltwater lagoon in Co Wexford. “Where’s the evidence for that?” he replied tetchily.
It is tempting to craft a detailed response to the Minister, listing out all the studies published over the last two decades by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and forwarded as a matter of course to his department, but what is the point? Either the Minister is poorly informed or prefers not to know.
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The facts are actually piled high in EPA reports on the shelves of his own department and those of Teagasc and local authorities. The EPA’s catchment studies show agriculture accounts for roughly 70 per cent of nitrogen inputs in the southeast of Ireland. The data overwhelmingly points to farming – livestock and tillage – as the dominant pressure on water quality. And nitrate pollution is actually on the rise at more than a third of river sites.
An Taisce’s recent submission to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy stated that the nitrogen pollution problem in the south and southeast was a result of ineffective regulation, combined with a notable lack of enforcement of the regulations we do have. All the scientific evidence points to the need for a radical reduction in fertiliser and slurry spreading in sensitive catchments.
An EPA-funded study published earlier this year and conducted by Aquafact found a five to seven-fold reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to Lady’s Island Lake would be necessary to return the lagoon to good ecological status.
[ ‘The lough isn’t just dying, it’s been killed’: How Lough Neagh reached crisis point ]
This will require changes to farming practices and the construction of buffers and wetlands, as well as tree planting, to contain the nutrient losses. It will also require stepped up inspections and enforcement: since 2018, Wexford County Council has only conducted 30 farm inspections despite the critical state of the lagoon.
The Aquafact study was considered at a hearing of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy last week. There was no denial evident from the experts who addressed the committee. Not from Wexford County Council, nor from the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Their representatives pointed out that it has been known for four decades that Lady’s Island, an ecologically important saltwater lagoon used by migrating birds, was in steady decline.
Local farmers are, on the whole, compliant with the environmental regulations. But if the government’s Nitrates Action Plan is not fit for purpose, and permits too much nitrates and phosphates to be deposited in sensitive catchments, then nutrient run-off and pollution is inevitable.
However, the Minister for Agriculture has yet to state in the Dáil that he will act decisively to improve water quality, hiding instead behind vague statements such as “science is telling us things are not where they should be”.
It seems like everyone apart from the Minister for Agriculture is in agreement that radical measures are required to reduce nutrient losses. But if the Minister believes there is insufficient evidence to act, then he can justify more studies, more talk, more delays. Politically speaking, his goal is to retain the nitrates derogation (which permits higher stocking rates of cattle), not to save Lady’s Island.
Retaining the nitrates derogation has become the rallying cry for the entire agricultural sector and its political backers, despite the obvious problem that it is adding to the pollution burden in our rivers, lakes and estuaries.
So it would be wrong to think of the death of Lady’s Island as a tragedy. Government policy on nitrates is designed to fail, but to keep the derogation regardless. The policy is to sacrifice water quality where it cannot be improved with modest interventions, to support agricultural exports.
The Minister has a small chance of rescuing the lagoon from the fate of Lough Neagh by acting decisively to reduce nutrient pollution and to fund the required measures, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Sadhbh O’Neill is a climate and environmental researcher
