Have a look around the farm to see where there might be likely problems and try to get them fixed before your water quality inspection is the advice from senior inspector with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Michael Martin.
The Teagasc Signpost series webinar on the EPA’s national agricultural inspection programme (NAIP) took place on Friday, with Martin giving an overview of the programme and offering advice to farmers on how best to prepare for an inspection.
A farmer will generally receive 48-hour notice before a planned inspection is set to take place, while no notice is given if the inspection is due to a complaint or incident.
On the day, inspectors are basically looking at whether the farmer is complying with regulations in the good agricultural practice for the protection of waters regulations and also that there is no breach of the Water Pollution Act.
Inspectors may also require some documentation, Martin highlighted. Therefore, it's important to make this available on the day.
Inspection checklist
Specific areas that will be checked during the inspection include:
Inspections ramped up
In 2025, the number of county council water quality inspections was up 66% on 2024, with four in 10 farms failing inspections.
During these inspections, 2,935 enforcement actions were undertaken and five prosecutions were also taken by local authorities.
Martin explained that the high non-compliance rates we are now seeing are likely due to the increased number of inspections taking place.
“When you ramp up an inspection system, you start carrying out more inspections and you're carrying them out in areas where you know there's problems, you are more likely to find those problems,” he highlighted.
“We know that farmers want to do the right thing. We know that they want good water quality. It's central to their livelihood as well. We're knocking on an open door here.”
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