Looking back on Ireland’s environmental record in 2025, it is tempting to frame the year as one of contradiction. Across climate, water quality, biodiversity and land use, the signals were consistent and increasingly difficult to soften. Water quality and the derogation questionNowhere is this interaction clearer than in Ireland’s ongoing struggle with water quality. Yet by 2025, the environmental outcomes associated with that system were increasingly difficult to reconcile with the claim of sustainability. Ireland’s environmental challenges are not the result of ignorance or indifference.

Source: Irish Examiner January 02, 2026 07:40 UTC