Banner: Slurry spreading by Stephen Craven, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Press release:

An Taisce — the National Trust for Ireland, today (Monday 9 March) confirmed it has filed an application to the High Court seeking judicial review of the sixth Nitrates Action Programme (NAP), adopted by the Minister for Housing, Heritage and Local Government in early December last.  

The proceedings also challenge the associated Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) Regulations (S.I. 588 of 2025) and seek a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to determine the validity of the European Commission’s Nitrates Derogation decision granted to Ireland, also in December last. 

The new challenge builds on the ongoing legal case taken by An Taisce against the fifth Nitrates Action Programme. 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 (1).  

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.  

An Taisce’s Head of Advocacy, Dr. Elaine McGoff explained the background to the further application: “We have not taken this case lightly. It is a challenge to a flawed and unlawful process. The public at large are strong in their view that clean water should be a national priority. The Government is clearly not listening. Its own environmental assessment of water management acknowledges that the protocols previously established have never been properly assessed and have repeatedly failed to protect water quality.  It is therefore profoundly unscientific and short-sighted to just continue those provisions in the hope of achieving a better outcome this time round. We are asking the Court to require that the law is followed.” 

She continued “At the heart of the challenge is a fundamental failure of process with an absence of evidence underpinning the measures that were being proposed, as well as changes to methodology which in our opinion are aimed at avoiding detailed environmental scrutiny of plan. An Taisce pointed out a number of significant legal and ecological weaknesses in the plan in our own submission to the consultation, which drew on varied bases of evidence and research that could equally have been procured by the Department itself in its work. It would seem that this evidence was ignored as the NAP was approved just a few days after the public consultation closed with no apparent changes on the areas addressed”. 

The legal proceedings set out that the NAP was adopted without publishing the legally required Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Statement – a document that must set out how environmental concerns were taken into account before the programme was finalised.  

The proceedings also target the unexplained reclassification of the Habitats Directive assessment process. Unlike previous NAPs, the Sixth NAP was classified as a ‘management plan’ for European protected sites – a designation that allowed the Minister to exclude the vast majority of its substantive measures from full Appropriate Assessment, with the rationale that they were necessary for the management of these protected areas. This meant that 32 of 34 possible measures, including rules on slurry storage, buffer zones, fertiliser application periods and livestock manure limits, were screened out from detailed environmental scrutiny. 

This approach was adopted despite Ireland’s own Article 17 Habitats Directive report, published just days after the NAP was finalised, showing that 90% of Ireland’s protected habitats are in unfavourable conservation status and that 69% of those habitats are directly impacted by agricultural pressures. This further calls into question the extent of environmental assessment which was undertaken in respect of this new NAP.  

An Taisce is also challenging the programme’s compliance with the Water Framework Directive, pointing to EPA data from August 2025 identifying ongoing elevated nitrogen levels across major river catchments in the south-east – including the Slaney, Barrow, Bandon, Blackwater, Boyne, Nore and Suir– with associated estuaries in moderate or poor condition. The State previously accepted that polluting nutrient loads needed to be reduced in our rivers, lakes and estuaries, yet water quality has continued to deteriorate in the intervening period. 

An Taisce argues that if the High Court quashes the NAP as per the application, then the Commission’s Implementing Decision in December 2025 granting Ireland a nitrates derogation would also fall, as the derogation was explicitly granted on the basis of the validity of the Sixth NAP and the Good Agricultural Practice Regulations. 

Dr McGoff concluded “we understand very well that any challenge to the Nitrates Action Programme could have profound implications for landowners who have expanded and invested in agricultural production on foot of successive Government promises and incentives. However, we cannot ignore the necessity to protect two of the essential ingredients for flourishing rural life and agriculture - clean water and uncontaminated soil – which are no less critical to the viability of agriculture today and which must be preserved for future generations. These have not been given the priority or protection that the public expect”.  

Footnote:

1 — 1 See para 7 of Commission Implementing Decision, C(2025) 9263 final