URGENT ACTION IS required to sort out Ireland’s consistently poor water quality, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said. 

A new report reveals that there was little change in water quality last year, meaning it remains unsatisfactory in many areas.

Excess nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, from farming, poorly treated wastewater discharge and chemicals from fertiliser and pesticides are the main culprits.

When too much of these nutrients get into rivers, lakes and coastal waters, they can cause an overgrowth of algae which depletes oxygen and chokes up the habitat for other species, the EPA explained.

The biological health of rivers and lakes has shown little change with slightly more than half (54%) in good or better biological quality.

Some 43% of river sites have elevated nitrogen levels. Meanwhile, almost a third of lakes and rivers have too much phosphorus. 

The EPA finds that, despite some short-term variation in concentrations from year to year, there is no evidence that levels of these nutrients are falling over time.

Commenting on the report, Roni Hawe, Director of the EPA’s Office of Evidence and Assessment, said once waterways deteriorate, they’re hard to rectify.

Ireland’s water quality is not improving overall, and that should concern all of us.

“The decline in high status water bodies is a serious warning sign,” said Hawe.

“Clean water underpins healthy ecosystems, safe drinking water, recreation and local economies.

“We need to act with greater urgency to cut pollution and protect the waters we all depend on. Our actions must match the scale of the problem.”

She said targeted action and measures tailored to the specific challenges affecting each water body must be “accelerated” if trends are to change.

The report shows water quality improvements in some areas.

In the Ballyteigue-Bannow area in Wexford, six of the 16 rivers surveyed in 2025 improved in biological quality.

The EPA said further assessment is needed to determine what specific changes within this catchment area led to the improvements.

‘Repeated failures’

The Social Democrats have taken aim at the government and its agencies over what it says are “repeated wastewater operational failures by Uisce Éireann”.

A 2025 report by the EPA found that almost 60% of all waste water discharged from treatment plants is not consistently meeting the standards to prevent pollution.

Nearly half of these failures were due to poor operational management at existing treatment plants.

“The government needs to take a zero tolerance approach to repeated operational failures by Uisce Éireann,” Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore said.

“When it comes to breaches by Uisce Éireann – which have the potential to seriously pollute our waters – there appears to be no accountability.”