An extension to the upcoming slurry spreading deadline has been ruled out by Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue.

Answering a question in the Dáil on Thursday 26 September from Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on agriculture Martin Kenny TD, Minister McConalogue said the final date for applying organic fertiliser will not be pushed beyond 30 September this year.

“It is not something I intend to extend or I am in a position to extend and for a very good reason.

"All of our collective priority has to be in terms of ensuring we are improving water quality and in particular that we are keeping our nitrates derogation that is dependent on good water quality.

“The closed dates are there for good scientific reason. The slurry is spread at a time of year that once the nutrients hit the ground, that the plants are growing to utilise those nutrients and so a farmer can grow grass or grow crops, rather than it sit there in the ground, not getting utilised by a plant and be potentially leached into water courses.

“That’s what happens from this point of the year onwards,” he said.

Minister McConalogue added that “October is not the time to be spreading slurry”.

Deputy Kenny responded that there needs to be more flexibility around the idea of calendar farming, pointing to the Indian summer experienced last week.

The final date for spreading slurry on farms in Ireland this year is 30 September 2024, with the closed period beginning on 1 October 2024.

Last year

This time last year, it had been announced that farmers were being granted a seven-day extension to the slurry spreading season.

Minister McConalogue said there was a different set of circumstances in 2023 than in 2024.

“I’ve considered it and I’m always flexible where it’s absolutely needed, but this is a very different autumn, thankfully, to the one we had last year,” he said.

In recent days and weeks, there have been calls for the slurry spreading deadline to be extended by the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), Sinn Féin, the Association of Farm and Forestry Contractors in Ireland (FCI) and a Mayo county councillor.

FCI said the closing date of 1 October 2024 for the application of organic fertilisers to farmland is not practical in a year when farmers have experienced what can be considered to have been a 15-month winter period.