Uisce Éireann convicted over pollution of Cavan river and told to pay €7,000

Uisce Éireann has been convicted following the sewage pollution of the Cavan town river, which caused a fish kill.

The case was heard in Cavan District Court on 3 October 2025, where Uisce Éireann was found to have committed water pollution breaches at the river.

It must now pay a €3,500 fine and €4,158 in costs in connection with the incident.

The fish kill happened due to a wastewater pumping station discharge into a trout spawning and nursery habitat.

The pollution incident occurred on 1 July 2023, when the discharge caused sewage fungus to cover a 2km stretch of the Cavan town riverbed, downstream of the incident.

A total of 150 brown trout were killed and ranged in size from juvenile to adult.

Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) welcomed the conviction.

Dr Milton Matthews, IFI’s north-western director, said: "This contamination event should never have happened. It resulted in the needless and avoidable death of a significant number of brown trout."

‘Regrets’

A spokesperson for Uisce Éireann said following the fish kill it put a number of measures in place to seek to ensure that such an incident will not recur.

“These measures include the installation of new sensors to detect any issues with the operation of the pumping station so that immediate steps can be taken to rectify them.

“New operating procedures for the site have also been developed and implemented, including weekly inspections of the river and pumping station, and daily readings of the monitoring and control data from the pump station.”

No further incidents have occurred on the site since, the spokesperson added.

“Uisce Éireann regrets the environmental damage resulting from this incident and any distress caused to the local community.

“In addition, Uisce Éireann is analysing capital investment requirements to safeguard and improve the long-term performance of our assets.”