Today, we have another damning report from the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, on Ireland's declining water quality. Nearly half of our rivers are ecologically unhealthy. They are dying, as is all the wildlife and biodiversity in them. Our high status water bodies are deteriorating. These rivers are hugely important ecologically. They are refuges for some of our protected species, such as kingfisher and salmon. Almost 10% of these rivers have declined in quality in the past year alone. More worrying, we have seen a net decline of 25% in the number of high quality rivers since 2012. The trend is clear and undeniable, and we all know why it is happening. It is predominantly because of agricultural run-off, with wastewater discharges also being a major cause. These are the facts. That is the science.

We can see the devastating impact of Government policy and inaction. In many cases, that impact will irreversible. Last week, the journalist Ella McSweeney shared a graph of wild salmon returns to Irish waters in recent decades. From the mid-1970s to today, salmon returns collapsed from 180,000 per year to fewer than 20,000 per year. Ms McSweeney rightly referred to it as extinction in our time. That is what we are witnessing and what the Government is facilitating.

Just last week, there was another major fish kill incident in the River Glyde in County Louth. Drone footage captured 25 km of pollution and tens of thousands of dead fish, including adult and juvenile Atlantic salmon and European eel. The source of the pollution has been confirmed to be agricultural discharge. A file is now being prepared for a potential prosecution, but even if that happens and the prosecution is successful, the fines are so small that they barely register. There is a reason Ireland is now the only country in the EU with a nitrates derogation. It is because the derogation is simply incompatible with good water quality.

The Taoiseach will accuse me and the Social Democrats of attacking farmers, but nothing could be further from the truth. As a party, we just do not peddle obvious falsehoods and inherent contradictions, so we do not claim it is possible to spread disproportionate levels of nitrogen on soil and keep our rivers clean, not when we all know that agricultural run-off is our biggest pollutant. That is not anti-farmer. It is just fact. Does the Taoiseach accept that fact? If not, will he just come out and say it, that protecting our waterways and biodiversity simply is not a priority for the Government?

First, it is a priority for the Government. The EPA report has serious findings. There were some positives in terms of some areas that had improved, and I think the report recommends that they be studied more, particularly in the Bannow area, to understand what is being done there that could be replicated elsewhere.

The Deputy will be aware that we have set up a Cabinet subcommittee specifically on water quality to oversee the implementation of the programme for Government commitments. A number of key Ministers are on it.

In terms of investment in water quality, there is an overall national development plan allocation for water. The Government has allocated about €12.2 billion over the next few years for water services and water quality, of which 95% or €11.7 billion is earmarked directly for Uisce Éireann. There is a further €230 million for rural water infrastructure, including group water schemes and so forth. Regarding river, lake and coastal water quality restoration, about €306 million has been allocated to that. A substantial amount of the money for Uisce Éireann is for capital projects, which means upgrading water treatment plants, removing supplies from the EPA remedial action list, eliminating contamination risks, new wastewater treatment plants, upgrading sewerage infrastructure, eliminating untreated sewage discharges into rivers and coastal waters, water mains replacement, pipe upgrades and the national leakage reduction programme. That is the level of investment we are putting in, which is unprecedented. The Deputy cannot say that the Government is not prioritising water quality, because that is one very effective way of improving it.

By the way, I will say in passing that Uisce Éireann needs to dramatically reduce the pollution emanating from its own discharges, half of which are operational issues, which in my view is absolutely unacceptable from a governance and management perspective.

In terms of agriculture, there is a significant issue there. We have never said there was not, but we have again, in a range of initiatives, provided supports for farmers to take additional measures to improve water quality. The farming for water European innovation partnership, EIP, with funding of over €60 million, was launched in 2024 and involved Teagasc, Dairy Industry Ireland and the local authorities water programme, LAWPRO. There were about 5,500 applications from the farming community. Since 2015, close to €200 million has supported investment in manure storage and low-emission slurry-spreading equipment. There are about 54,000 farmers participating in the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, while the agricultural sustainability support and advisory programme, ASSAP, will continue providing free, confidential water quality advice through to 2027.

In the 1980s, we had over 500 pristine rivers. Now, we have just 20 - actually, it is probably less than that because that is a 2018 figure - so for the Taoiseach to say this is a priority for the Government simply is not credible. Agricultural run-off was responsible for pollution in approximately 1,000 water bodies and the Government consistently fights for a derogation for Ireland to be able to apply more chemical applications to the soil, which inevitably run off into the rivers. Not that we needed further evidence that this was not a priority for the Government, but research has been done on alternatives to applying chemical nitrogen and we know that red clover can be as effective at fixing nitrogen into the soil, and the Government shelved that scheme only last month. The Taoiseach should stand up again and tell me how it is credible to say that the Government is prioritising water quality in terms of agricultural run-off.

On the maintenance of the nitrates derogation, we have been availing of the derogation since 2006 primarily because our grass-based farming system is much different to systems across the Continent. About 7,000 farmers have participated in that. By the way, those participating farmers probably have a higher and better record than those outside the derogation.

It is more complex than the Deputy is articulating. In some tillage areas, you can have significant run-off. It is not all dairy. Depending on-----

I did not say it was.

Please, I did not interrupt the Deputy. It depends on soil composition and other factors.

I looked at the data on estuaries. There has been quite a significant improvement in terms of phosphorous in estuaries, although not so much in terms of rivers and lakes. It is not where it should be - there is no question around that - but we have a number of fronts. You could end the directive tomorrow morning but that would have huge impacts on the dairy industry and other industries.

Thank you, Taoiseach.

The Deputy has not spelled that out-----

I call Deputy Bacik.

-----and has not even articulated that either.

I have many times.

We actually did today, Taoiseach.

Deputy Bacik, please.

Blame the poor farmer.