Half our rivers, lakes and estuaries are unhealthy, with pollution escalating

The Government has published a proposed water management plan (the River Basin Management Plan) but it’s weak and won’t work and we need to let them know!

Sustainable Water Network (SWAN), a network of 25 of Ireland’s leading local & national environmental groups, working together to protect Ireland’s rivers, lakes, bays, seas & groundwaters, is calling for an effective action plan to restore ALL waters in Ireland to a healthy state. We have seven key recommendations on how to do it. You can use these to ask the government to fix the plan and ‘Restore Our Waters’. With enough people behind these asks the government will have to act.

Will you be part of the change and act now for your water environment?

Read more about how to take action, SWAN’s 7 Asks, why we need action and who is SWAN below

How do I take action?

1 minute option:

Click the button below to create a short pre-filled email submission
with SWAN’s 7 key asks for you to send to the department.

You can send it as is, but it’s even better if you personalise it. Then just put your name at the end and hit send.

When you click the button it creates an email in your default email system with the department’s email address, subject, and SWAN’s asks prefilled for you to send. If the automatic email does not work with your email set-up please find a copy of the email to send here.

3 minute+ option:

Download the department’s submission template,
prefilled with SWAN’s more extensive asks, to edit and email.

1. Click on the button below to download the pre-filled submission template in Word.

2. Fill in your details and personalise and edit if you wish (this is better!)

3. Email it to rbmp@housing.gov.ie.

While there are many activities impacting our waters, SWAN members together identified the most pressing issues that we are prioritising for action. That’s why not every question in the template is answered. However, feel free to fill in the blanks!

What are SWAN’s 7 key asks?

These are our recommendations to fix the plan and restore our waters to a healthy state.

Why we need action?

Who is SWAN?

The Sustainable Water Network (SWAN) is an umbrella network of 25 of Ireland’s leading environmental NGOs, national and regional, working together to protect and restore Ireland’s rivers, lakes, coast and groundwater through coordinated participation in the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), the Floods Directive, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and other water-related policy.