River Boyne Task Force Bill 2023: Second Stage [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-01-22 ============================================================ Ged Nash (LAB), Louth I thank the Minister of State for his response even though it is not a response that I would agree with. It is disappointing that the Government has decided not to send the Bill for further examination on Committee Stage or delay its next reading, but to actively oppose it. I do not think that sends out the right the signal. It is very disappointing and in some ways upends a practice that has been in place for some time. I believe the arguments that the Bill makes merit and warrant further consideration. The Minister of State knows that I have the height of professional and personal respect and time for him. We have worked together over many years but, if he will excuse the pun, for a debate about water and a river, it has been a very dry debate. With respect to his officials who crafted the response, to me it appears to be an indefensible defence of a broken system. I believe the systems and frameworks that we have in place for managing our environment, protecting our rivers and bringing them up to the kinds of standard that citizens expect in order to protect our natural habitats, our biodiversity and our drinking water are far from where they should be. I note that the Minister of State referenced baseline comparators with other European states. We are really not comparing like with like. There are lots of European water systems under much more pressure than Irish water systems, but they are in heavily industrialised areas and in states that have only in relatively recent times joined the European Union and been subject to the water framework directive and so on. We have infringements on the water framework directive the length of our arm. We do not take the water framework directive seriously at all. I would argue that rather than the Bill's measures being counterproductive, their intention was to introduce greater collaboration and co-ordination between systems that in my view are already failing rivers like the River Boyne. We have Uisce Éireann. We have the EPA. We have the local authorities. We have port companies. We have Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, and a range of different bodies. We have had LAWPRO for a number of years, an organisation that has great potential to raise public awareness of our water bodies and what needs to be done to protect them. However, the system that is in place at the moment just does not work and the evidence of that is there from disimproved water quality. I read the data from the EPA and I do not want to single out one sector over another, but there is an elephant in the room. We know that the nitrates directive exemption has been extended again. Ireland was straining to make those arguments. In the context of the Boyne, agriculture was the top significant pressure impacting on the river - this is directly from the EPA - at 66% of the 87% at-risk water bodies within the Boyne catchment area and we are extending the nitrates directive again. I do not want to be gratuitously having a pop at any one sector over another, but it is probably time we had adult, grown-up debates in our national Parliament and stop pretending that we do not have issues that are going to cause us real problems, not just in the future, but are causing us real problems today. Quite frankly, no one here seems to have the balls - the cojones - to understand and accept that. Responsible politicians who show leadership have responsible, mature and informed conversations with the people they represent. Regarding many of the measures and plans put in place now by the agencies to better manage our water ways, we are doing those with one hand tied behind our back in some ways because if we do not improve how we deal with agricultural run-off and so on, then the problems are waterways are going to experience will be insurmountable and we may as well right off some of our rivers. For what? I am the first person in this Chamber to defend somebody's right to make a livelihood. I am the first person to understand the importance of economic sectors to our country, but we need a responsible discussion. We just seem incapable of having responsible discussions in this Chamber. That is a poor reflection on the Government and a poor reflection on us as public representatives. For example, the least the nitrates directive extension merited was an informed debate and we did not have that. We do not seem to have those debates in this Chamber any more. There are issues in this regard. Interestingly, the Minister of State indicated that since the Bill was published and introduced on First Stage in 2023, there have been some innovations. I hope I am not overstating matters or making excessive claims but we can see some of the measures proposed in the Bill mimicked in some ways in the community forum that was established. I do not know whether it is a coincidence, but one of the first community forums established was in the Boyne catchment area. I am happy to take credit for that. If that brings stakeholders together to improve our environment, it is good and I am happy to give it a fair wind. Let me return to the nitrates directive and the impact of intensive agriculture, especially the intensification of dairy over the past ten years or so. I do not want to single out any group. Farmers are the custodians of our landscape and environment and are working very hard to come up with innovative solutions to try to address the problems. They understand the threats posed to rivers. I was making a general point earlier to the effect that, regardless of where we stand on issues of considerable national importance like this, we should have a proper and respectful debate on them. The decision was taken and that was that. Off we went. People in agriculture have to be involved. Task forces see an intrinsic role for people working in agriculture, including farmers, in the management and stewardship of our environment. I acknowledge that organisations such as Boyne Rivers Trust do very important work in partnership with the farming community. I was very excited when the European Innovation Partnership came on board. This entails a very big investment in an important initiative. I hope our water quality can and will improve, but I remain sceptical because of the extension of the nitrates directive. I am disappointed we will not get the opportunity to examine the principles of this Bill, determine what we can learn from them and insert them into Government policy and future legislation in the area of river water quality protection. I do not have a huge amount of confidence, based on the record over the past few years, that our approach will see any dramatic improvements. In fact, all we see are disimprovements. The initiative I have referred to is a genuine contribution not only to try to improve the Boyne river but also, perhaps, to introduce a new framework for the management of our rivers and, in addition, something that is missing, namely democratic oversight. I am referring to genuine public engagement on the management of our rivers and the inclusion of community experts and those in our communities who care about our rivers’ development and future. An opportunity has been missed in this regard, which is unfortunate. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-22/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:32+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-22