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An Taisce filed an application to the High Court seeking a judicial review of the sixth Nitrates Action Programme earlier this week. We wanted to share the background to what's been going on and the important reasons why this decision was taken.

Reason for this Challenge

This new challenge builds on the ongoing legal case taken by An Taisce against the fifth Nitrates Action Programme. The High Court of Ireland referred several questions to the European Court of Justice. That case was heard by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg in December 2025 with the Opinion of the Advocate General due at the end of this month, and the full decision of the Court later in the year. The outcome of the existing legal case taken by An Taisce was identified by the EU Commission when granting the new Nitrates Derogation as a key future consideration in relation to any further derogation requests.

The decision by An Taisce to issue these new legal proceedings follows an extended period of review and is based on the undisputed evidence of continuing deterioration of water quality in Ireland. It is a reiteration of An Taisce’s longstanding commitment to defend water quality as all the scientific evidence available to us shows clearly that the 6th NAP as proposed simply does not provide the level of protection that is needed for water quality in Ireland and will likely lead to further deterioration of water quality.

We spelled out our legal and ecological concerns in significant detail in our submission to the public consultation on the 6th Nitrates Action Programme, but it would appear, given both the unchanged content of the final draft,  and the fact that it was adopted just days after that consolation closed, that the evidence in that submission was not taken on board.

State of Water Quality

The EPA has consistently demonstrated that water quality is under pressure primarily from agriculture, with nitrogen pollution being a significant problem in the South and Southeast of the country, corresponding to where the most intensive dairy farming occurs.

The latest most comprehensive EPA report highlights that overall ecological quality had decreased - with 48% of the surface water bodies not as ecologically healthy or resilient as they should be, a decline from the previous assessment when 54% were satisfactory. Estuaries are the ultimate receptors of this nutrient pollution, and as a result have undergone what the EPA have referred to as precipitous declines, with 70% of them now in unsatisfactory condition.  With our changing climate we will see increasingly wet winters, extreme rainfall events and droughts, which will add an additional pressure on our already polluted water bodies, likely leading to greater instances of algal blooms and fish kills.

Ireland is now the sole EU member with a 'Nitrates Derogation'. This allows Irish farmers to stock higher densities of cattle and apply more organic nitrogen (such as slurry) than the guidelines typically allow. To maintain a derogation however, farmers must also adhere to stricter regulations, such as fencing of watercourses, additional slurry storage, and use of Low Emission Slurry Spreading techniques. However, to date, there has been no environmental assessment carried out ahead of farmers being granted derogations.  This is now changing on foot of the An Taisce challenge to the 5th Nitrates Action Programme, with appropriate assessment for derogations being introduced from the end of 2028.

Radical change is now necessary in the management of nutrient inputs to agricultural land to comply with EU Directives on water quality (the Nitrates and Water Framework Directives), both of which the Irish Government are legally bound to implement. To date, instead of seeking better compliance with the Nitrates Directive, which is designed to protect water from agricultural pollution, Ireland is instead continuing to seek derogations from the maximum organic nitrogen limits allowed, in order to facilitate greater nitrogen loading onto certain areas of land. This is not in keeping with the wishes of the Irish people. In an Ireland Thinks poll from last year, 82% of people said that clean rivers and lakes were a priority for them. The public at large have consistently been strong in their view that clean water should be a national priority, but the Government is clearly not listening.

An Taisce has not taken this case lightly. It is a challenge to a flawed and unlawful process.  Its own environmental assessment of water management acknowledges that previous NAPs and measures have never been properly assessed and have repeatedly failed to protect water quality.

The SEA Environmental Report highlighted:

“Definitively linking NAP measures to their environmental outcomes would inform the compilation of a robust suite of measures capable of achieving the environmental objectives of the Nitrates Directive. The assessments outlined in Chapters 7 and 8 of this Environmental Report highlight a pressing need for detailed, evidence-based assessment of the effectiveness of the NAP measures individually.... Considering the state of the environment outlined in Chapter 5, it is likely that significant changes will be required to ensure the efficacy of NAPs.”  

Meaning that after almost 30 years of having the nitrates Directive in place, there has never been an assessment of the efficacy of the measures which are being put forward in the NAPs. We believe that it is profoundly unscientific and short-sighted to just continue those provisions in the hope of achieving a better outcome this time round, which is essentially what is being proposed. We are asking the Court to require that the law is followed in terms of putting evidenced based measures in place to protect our waterbodies and to protect our European Protected habitats and species.

An Taisce will provide a summary of the case once it is opened in Court.

Farmers' concerns

We recognise that farmers are very concerned about recent changes in the regulations, and that this challenge may exacerbate that. However, this challenge is not targeting farmers who we believe are the victims of a systemic failure of foresight, policy and leadership at Government level in charting a credible way forward for agriculture while protecting water quality.

Farmers, particularly dairy farmers, have largely followed the market signals and government advice to expand and intensify. This intensification has happened without adequate legally mandated safeguards, those which have been in place to date have failed to protect water quality.

Consequently, farmers are being asked to follow a range of rules, often at their own expense, that are not fit for purpose, and which do not contribute to achieving the desired outcome. This fails the farming community as well as the environment.

If you want to learn more, there’s a lot of information available on the site, including via submissions, news and stories sections.

We recommend watching the webinar below to understand more. It provides a great overview of how agricultural nitrate pollution works.

• What is a derogation? See our comprehensive explainer

• Webinar (see below): What you need to know about nitrates

• Nitrate Case referred to Europe