Just 21 Irish golf clubs have registered their water use

New rules requiring Irish golf courses to register if they extract large volumes of water from groundwater sources have been complied with by just 21 of Ireland’s 350 venues.

Clubs that extract more than 25,000 litres of water in a day must register with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to enable the watchdog to keep track of usage. The deadline to register was November 16 last year.

A register of extractions is required under EU law and the information will be used to inform Irish legislation.

According to The Times newspaper, there are fears about the impact of a repeat of last summer’s drought. Nine-hole courses use about 20,000 litres a day and 18-hole courses anything from 40,000 to 300,000 litres a day. In a 2018 river basin management plan, it was estimated that about 300 Irish golf courses needed to register.

The Golfing Union of Ireland said that there had been a ‘major shortfall’ in the number of courses registered. It said that many clubs were run by volunteers so it was possible that the gap was due to an oversight.

EPA figures show that 2,366 extraction points out of a possible 3,000 have been registered — up from 2,200 registered at the end of 2018. An official said the EPA had been chasing up representatives from sectors with low registration numbers, such as golf courses.

Sinéad O’Brien, from the Sustainable Water Network, said: “I suspect these businesses are not getting a strong message that they will be sanctioned if they do not register.”