Close to half of all farms failed their inspections last year, that’s according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Local authorities are supposed to inspect 4,500 per year. In 2025, they inspected 4,315 farms.
“These inspections found a non-compliance rate of 43 percent due to poor farming practices or management,” the EPA says.
“Some of the main reasons for non-compliance include: Uncontrolled runoff from farmyard manure; inadequate management of silage pits; silage effluent discharging to groundwater; clean water not properly segregated and soiled water not properly managed; inadequate storage capacity and inadequate management and control of slurry.”
The findings are contained in the EPA’s National Agricultural Inspection Programme report, which was published today.
Commenting on the report, Dr Tom Ryan, Director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement said:
“The significant increase in the number of farm inspections carried out by local authorities in 2025 is welcomed. Agriculture remains a significant pressure on our water quality and the non-compliance rate found during inspections remains too high.”
Inspections are a requirement under the European Union (Good Agricultural Practice for Protection of Waters) Regulations 2025.
Farm compliance “is essential to protecting and improving water quality,” Dr Tom Ryan said.
“In addition, a more consistent and sustained enforcement effort is needed across all local authorities to ensure full compliance with these Regulations and to protect public health and the environment.”
Follow-up inspections by local authorities are also a requirement to ensure that “non-compliant” farms are working to get their act together.
The EPA also warned that farmers could be fined for not meeting envirionmental standards.
“Non-compliant farmers may be subject to enforcement actions which may result in a penalty to their Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) Scheme payments, a prosecution or a combination of both.”
Nearly 3,000 farmers faced “enforcement actions” last year, the EPA said.
Ray Cullinane, Acting Programme Manager, Office of Environmental Enforcement said:
“Local authorities must sustain the increased level of farm-inspection activity achieved in 2025. To address the high non-compliance rate, local authorities should increase follow-up inspections to close out outstanding cases and ensure full compliance with the relevant Regulations.
In parallel, local authorities, advisory services and industry stakeholders must also strengthen compliance-promotion and awareness-raising activities to support farmers in meeting their regulatory obligations”.