Half of Cork farms inspected by Council failed water quality protection regulations
CorkmanHalf of the farms inspected by Cork County Council under the National Agriculture Inspection Programme (NAIP) this year have failed to comply with the government’s Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) regulations regarding water quality protection.
The local authority carried out 425 NAIP inspections in 2025 up to September 30 and found 51pc of farms to be non-compliant with the GAP regulations, a meeting of the Western Division of the council heard this week. The most common reason for non-compliance was inadequate soiled water collection and storage, followed by inadequate management of farmyard manure, council official Ger Barry told the meeting.
Of the 425 farms inspected, the areas with the most inspections were West Cork (143) and Fermoy (126). The council has sent out a total of 218 warning letters in response to non-compliant inspections with 80 of them sent to Fermoy farms and 79 to farms in West Cork.
The Cork municipal district where the highest number of NAIP-inspected farms were found to be non-compliant was Mallow/Kanturk (65pc), followed by Fermoy (63pc) and West Cork (55pc). In East Cork the figure was 36pc, 35pc in Bandon-Kinsale and 13pc in Macroom.
The purpose of the NAIP is to help maintain or bring about an improvement in natural water quality in Ireland. An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report published in October found that 48pc of surface water bodies are not as ecologically healthy or resilient as they should be. Findings included a high concentration of nutrient and nitrates in river water in the south and south-east of the country.
Speaking at the Western Division meeting, Cllr John Michael Foley described the finding that half of farms inspected were non-compliant as “worrying” but said that “most farmers are doing their utmost to control soiled water and farmyard manure and they are doing a great job. Unfortunately it is a minor few that are causing issues and I think the inspections and the compliance help to alleviate these problems.”
“It's not all because of farms that the 48 percent of surface water bodies are not as healthy or resilient as they should be, there are issues with sewage treatment plants and septic tanks as well,” he added.
The EPA has allocated a specific number of agricultural inspections to each local authority with inspections focused in areas where water bodies are significantly impacted by agriculture. Cork County Council has been instructed to undertake GAP/NAIP inspections on a minimum of 586 farms in 2025. The council says it has an ongoing programme of follow-up and incident response engagements and is currently projected to undertake a total of 1,120 farm inspections this year.