A new Water Action Plan which will see 6,200 water quality-focused farm inspections each year up to 2027 has been signed off by Government.

Some 4,500 of these inspections are to be undertaken by local authorities per year, with up to 1,000 by the Department of Agriculture targeted at the first three months of the year and an additional 700 to be carried out by the Department on nitrates derogation farms annually.

The new action plan details the State’s plan to push back deadlines for meeting the looming water quality deadline of 2027 for between 500 and 650 waterbodies, as revealed by the Irish Farmers Journal in June.

Only 54% of waterbodies meet all metrics required to qualify as having met the ‘good’ status needed by 2027 to comply with EU law, a deadline the plan notes as being “extremely challenging” to achieve across all waterways.

The plan commits to getting “as close to 100% of the water status objectives by 2027 as possible” but notes that it is “unlikely” that this overarching target will be met across all waterbodies, even if urgent and substantial water quality measures are widely adopted.

The plan also states that the Government will review the Arterial Drainage Act which gives a legal basis to public flood mitigation works carried out by the Office of Public Works (OPW).

The OPW maintains that its public works programmes have benefitted 263,000ha of farmland since the 1940s when the act was signed into law.