Thursday, 19th of June 2025: The Local Authority Waters Programme (LAWPRO) and Wexford County Council’s Climate Action and Environment Section held a meeting about the quality of our natural waters in Clonroche Community Hall on Tuesday 17th of June 2025.
The meeting was held to make more people aware of work to improve water quality in the area and to encourage as much engagement as possible with all stakeholders right across the community, including key agencies, special interest groups, voluntary, public and private sectors.
The well attended meeting was chaired by Ruth Hennessy, regional Catchment Manager with LAWPRO. She gave a presentation including an overview of operations, scientific data on water quality in the Boro catchment and community engagement and funding. Ruth set the scene describing the water quality in rivers and streams in Wexford as 41% good status but 43% at moderate or poor status. “Collaboration is key to success, and we are working with other relevant agencies in the Bann and Boro to address the issues” said Ruth.
David Rafter, Community Water Officer for Wexford and Carlow commended the great work done by community groups in Wexford saying: “Significant work is being done by volunteers along the Slaney including awareness raising events, river clean ups and water conservation projects and I am delighted to work with them and support their work, particularly Enniscorthy Tidy Towns, Edermine Ferry Rowing Club and Tomhaggard Clean Coasts.
It is heartening to see such impactful work being done at grassroots level, and to witness the collective commitment to safeguarding and improving water quality in the Slaney. We look forward to even stronger collaborations between local likeminded groups across the wider Slaney catchment in the months ahead.”
The evening progressed with an introduction from Eoin Kinsella, Executive Agricultural Scientist with Wexford County Council of the environment section within the council including agriculture, climate action, biodiversity and environmental staff.
Ger Shortle Regional Manager with Teagasc presented on the work Teagasc are doing in Wexford, with a particular focus on the Slaney and the appointment of a new co-ordinator to work specifically on agricultural pressures. Ger introduced their Better Farming for Water Project, this initiative recommends 8 Actions for change around nutrient, farmyard and land management. Matthew Moylan from Tirlán spoke about their focus on the Slaney with the Slaney Farming for Water Project and how they are working with dairy farmers to improve water quality awareness and install measures on their farms.
Jonathan Hughes from Enniscorthy Tidy Towns gave a presentation on water conservation projects and their annual river clean up. Jonathan commented on the close collaboration between community groups; Sustainable Enniscorthy, Edermine Ferry Rowing Club and Slaney Rivers Trust and how it adds great value to their work and emphasised the importance of all actions, large and small to help improve water quality.
Ken Whelan from the Slaney Rivers Trust spoke about the trust and how the community there were the first to set up a rivers trust in the country in the 1980s. The River Slaney is a recognised priority river for barrier removal with Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) and the Slaney Rivers Trust will work with IFI to lend their expertise on fish and work on removing barriers to fish migration on the prioritised river.
Ruth Hennessy concluded the meeting stating that collaboration between agencies, industry, local authorities and communities is essential to improving water quality and emphasised the importance of supporting farmers to put the right measures in place on their farmers to protect water quality.
LAWPRO will be hosting a second water quality meeting in collaboration with Wexford County Council next Thursday the 26th of June in Craanford Community Hall at 7pm, all are welcome to attend.
For more information on the work of LAWPRO please visit: www.lawaters.ie