A TOTAL of 55% of farms across the West Cork district have failed in National Agricultural Inspection Programme (NAIP) Inspections carried out by Cork County Council, the latest report shows.

The inspections are carried out with the aim of maintaining or improving the natural water quality across Ireland.

As part of the programme, the council has been tasked with carrying out a minimum of 586 farm inspections across the county in 2025.

However, they say they have plans to exceed this by carrying out 1,120 inspections in the year instead.

In the first nine month of the year, 143 NAIP inspections have been carried out across the West Cork district, and 260 farm inspections.

On foot of the 143 NAIP visits, 79 warning letters were sent, and nine reports sent to the Department of Agriculture as a result.

In the Bandon/Kinsale district, there were 119 farm inspections and another 60 NAIP inspections.

Of these 60, 21 warning letters were sent meaning a failure rate of 35%. Another nine reports were sent to the Department of Agriculture.

In the Macroom district, between January and September this year 53 farm inspections were carried out by the council and 16 NAIP inspections.

Of these NAIP visits, two warning letters were sent, with nothing sent to the Department of Agriculture.

The lowest-performing district in the county so far for 2025 is the Mallow/Kanturk area, as 65% of farms in the region failed their NAIP inspections, and another 63% of those in the Fermoy district failed.

However, in Kanturk/Mallow only one report was sent to the Department, and none were sent in the Fermoy district.

In fact, it was only in West Cork and Bandon/Kinsale that such a relatively large number of cross-reports were sent to the Department of Agriculture.

The most common reason for inspection failures across the county were the inadequate collection and storage of soiled water, followed by the inadequate management of manure.

Other common reasons for failure were a failure to manage slurry collection and storage properly, and discharges that could impact water quality.

In rarer cases, farms failed for spreading slurry and dirty water at the wrong time of the year.

In 2024, Department of Agriculture inspections on 116 non-compliant farms led to penalties for farmers ranging from 1% to 25% of their BISS payments.

Two farms that refused inspection received a 100% penalty on their BISS payments.

The non-compliance rate in 2024 was 25%, down from 30% in 2023, a figure the EPA found ‘unacceptably high’.

Across Cork County, for the first nine months of this year, the non-compliance in the National Agricultural Inspection Programme rate is 51%.