The Sustainable Water Network (SWAN), a network of 25 environmental organisations, has welcomed yesterday’s European Court of Justice ruling [1] that Ireland is in breach of its obligations under the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), the centrepiece of EU water protection law. This is a strong and wide-ranging ruling, identifying serious non-compliances with a whole host of water protection requirements in the directive, including failure to provide adequate controls on water abstraction and failure to put in place a regulatory framework to prevent physical damage to our waterways.
SWAN had previously warned that Ireland’s abstraction legislation [2], fell far short of the requirements of the directive and that there are no adequate regulations on physical damage to our rivers, lakes and coasts, in breach of the Water Framework Directive. and Tthis ruling has vindicated this position.
Sinéad O Brien, SWAN CEO, said, “Our abstraction legislation is so light-touch that it is a long way off providing meaningful monitoring or controls of the extraction of our most precious resource. The exemption thresholds set are so high that the majority of water abstractions remain unregulated, including agricultural and commercial abstractions. Today’s ruling that the threshold of 25 m³ per day for even registering abstraction is “excessively high”, supports SWAN’s long-held concerns and calls for it to be dropped to at least 10 m³ in line with Northern Ireland and Scotland.”
Dr. Elaine McGoff, Head of Advocacy for An Taisce and SWAN Vice-chair, said, “Physical damage to our waterways in Ireland, such as dredging, draining and damage to habitats, is the second biggest reason why half our waters are unhealthy, after agriculture. Yet we have failed to regulate in any effective way against these impacts. Instead, we have an act from a bygone era, the Arterial Drainage Act, that actively encourages these negative impacts. The Commission argued that it needs to be “amended to bring it into line with the objectives of that directive”. A review of the Arterial Drainage Act was promised, but nothing has yet been done to put this review in place. What is taking so long? The Government must urgently reform the Arterial Drainage Act to stop the considerable damage it is doing to our waterways across the country. ”
Sinéad O Brien, SWAN CEO, added, “After years of warnings, this ruling is a national embarrassment. The government has had 25 years since this law came into force; it must now act urgently to put this right. It must show that it is actually committed to safeguarding our rivers, lakes and seas, and our priceless water wildlife, by meeting its obligations under EU law. It must reduce the threshold for abstraction and introduce further robust abstraction monitoring and controls to protect our water resources for now and into the future. It’s now high time for the Government to deliver much stronger measures in all areas affecting water quality to meet the main objective of the WFD overall, restoring all our waterbodies to good health. Current measures are only continuing to lead us on a path in the wrong direction, as shown by the EPA in its latest water quality report. The alternative to taking these actions is more declines in the health of our waters and daily fines from the EU. Neither of which we can afford.”
Notes:
[1] Judgment of the Court (Ninth Chamber) of 20 November 2025. European Commission v Ireland. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62024CJ0204
[2] The ruling was on the 2018 Abstractions Registration Regulations threshold. However, the latest legislation passed, the Water Environment (Abstractions and Associated Impoundments) Act 2022, kept the same threshold.