Over-reliance on voluntary measures and guidelines to protect Irish rivers and lakes is inadequate in the face of unrelenting decline in their water quality, it has been claimed.
Responding to the recent Environmental Protection Agency report showing a continuing decline going back close to 30 years, the Trout Anglers' Federation of Ireland (TAFI) has alleged that the absence of more stringent measures shows that the Government does not accept "how serious the problem has become".
The EPA's findings for the 1995-1997 period were not a surprise, according to TAFI pollution officer Mr Tony Waldron. They had confirmed numerous independent studies initiated by anglers over the past decade.
"This is confirmation that Government measures and regulations to date have not been adequate to halt or reverse this serious problem," he said.
The threat to water had led to the introduction of "mainly voluntary rules, regulations and guidelines" now shown to be insufficient, he said - notwithstanding initiatives announced by the Department of the Environment since 1997.
Mr Waldron claimed there was an absence of political courage required to take decisive action. A compounding difficulty was "the disproportionate influence of the Department of Agriculture (and its agencies) relative to other departments, such as those dealing with environment and tourism".
Evidence that the decline in water quality closely mirrored a steady increase in intensive farming was undeniable, he said.
While agriculture was entitled to expand, it should not be at the expense of "our drinking waters; salmon and trout angling, a developing tourism economy and Ireland's green image".
Increased animal production in particular meant generation of large volumes of slurry, which were being carelessly disposed of by land-spreading. Combined with over-use of artificial fertilisers, these activities were "neither acceptable nor safe" from a water quality perspective.
