Ireland's largest co-op Tirlán must pay a €5,000 donation to charity after it admitted to polluting a river in Co Monaghan.

The processor must also pay costs of over €15,000 following the incident which happened at Tirlán’s dairy processing facility in Lough Egish Business Park in November 2023.

Monaghan District Court heard that high levels of “grossly polluting” matter was discharged into a wild brown trout spawning river.

Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) said large volumes of "white-coloured effluent" from the site were detected entering a tributary of the Knappagh River system - which flows into the River Erne.

Samples taken by IFI officers following the incident indicated high levels of organic material in the effluent that was toxic to fish, insects, and other aquatic life.

Guilty plea

Tirlán entered a plea of guilty in relation to the pollution event, and must now pay €15,177 in legal costs and expenses.

Milton Matthews, IFI’s north western river basin district director, said: “This serious pollution event had a significant impact on the brown trout spawning and nursery habitat within the Knappagh River catchment.

"This catchment is classified under the Water Framework Directive as being ‘at risk’.

"Tirlán has agreed to make a charitable contribution of €5,000 to the Bawn Community Group CLG to support the continued development and promotion of angling in the Bawn/Latton areas in Co Monaghan."

The Probation Act was applied after the case opened on 26 March 2025, and concluded on 23 April 2025.

Since the incident, IFI said that Tirlán has put in place a range of preventative measures, including regular daily monitoring and visual checks of the facility and adjacent watercourse, to guard against a future re-occurrence, the court was told.

Tirlán comment

Tirlán has told the Irish Farmers Journal that it is highly conscious of protecting the environs in which it operates and has protocols in place across all our facilities.

“Tirlán was disappointed that on this occasion an accidental discharge owing to a technical pump failure occurred at the Lough Egish facility.

“As acknowledged by the district court and Inland Fisheries [Ireland], Tirlán acted swiftly to deal with the matter, took all corrective actions and put in place a range of preventative measures, including regular daily monitoring, physical visual checks of the facility and adjacent watercourse to guard against incidents of this nature,” a spokesperson for the processor said.