The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage wants to review the effectiveness and efficiency of the penalties currently available to local authorities for farmers who breach water quality legislation.
This week, the department opened a tender process seeking external research and development consultancy services to examine the sanctions under the Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) regulations.
The regulations, which came into force on March 2022, give effect to Ireland’s Nitrates Action Programme (NAP) which aims to protect water courses against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources.
Review
According to the tender documents, the review will initially focus on the existing civil and administrative penalty regimes under the GAP regulations.
It will examine the experiences of local authorities in enforcement and prosecutions under the regulations, including the “problems encountered and lessons learned”.
The success tender applicant will be tasked with examining other legislation to see if there are “any learnings to inform strengthening of the GAP regulations, if required”.
The process will also compare the approach taken by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) scheme payments with that of the local authorities using enforcement actions such as convictions, fines and imprisonment.
The external review will be asked to include recommendations on any policy and legislative changes required, along with other relevant changes to strengthen the dissuasive sanctions under the GAP regulations, if needed.
The closing date for tender applications is May 26, 2023.