Dr. Elaine McGoff:

One has to look at reducing the surplus nitrogen in the catchments of concern. The surplus nitrogen must be reduced. Given that most of the nitrogen is coming from the cattle when they are out at pasture, the logical solution is to reduce the stocking density. There are other measures that could be taken to reduce it, such as using less fertilizer and slurry. As Teagasc has shown, the efficacy of such measures will be far less. Approximately 8% of the nitrogen comes from slurry. Even if we got rid of all the slurry, this would not be enough in the really problematic catchments.