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Environment Protection

Ensure greater coordination between, environmental regulation and planning control

The Environmental Protection Agency currently operates in somewhat of a vacuum and has failed to make the necessary connections with other bodies responsible for planning and human health. While it arguably makes sense to have individual specialist agencies responsible for environmental protection, human health and planning it makes no sense that they should be as disconnected from each other as they currently are.
In practice cooperation between the EPA and An Bord Pleanála on the environmental aspects of planning decisions and planning aspects of environmental decisions (for example, in licensing applications) has been very slow to develop.
Currently, the EPA and An Bord Pleanála do not link up in their decision-making, for example, the EPA have granted a licenses to a companies that do not have planning permission to operate in the first place.

Establish a formalised structure for the integration of environmental and human health assessment, monitoring and decision making capacities

Currently the remit of the EPA is environmental protection only. There are references to the protection of 'public health' in the 1992 Act. Indeed the definition of 'environmental protection' of the Act makes reference to the protection of 'public health', however, the Director of the EPA has explicitly said human health considerations are the responsibility of the Department of Health and Children and not the EPA. However, as Noonan points out:
"The Health Service Executive (as successor to the Health Boards) does not take responsibility for assessing health impacts of major pollution-risk projects. An Bord Pleanála is in effect still precluded from considering health in relation to those projects requiring EPA approval. Health is nobody's child. They say success has many fathers but that failure is an orphan".
A major study by the Health Research Board in 2002 highlighted the current inability / incapacity of the various health agencies to environment related health risks.
"Irish health information systems cannot support routine monitoring of the health of people living near waste sites. There is an urgent need to develop the skills and resources required to undertake health and environmental risk assessments in Ireland. This should be considered as an important development to build capacity in Ireland to protect public health in relation to potential environmental hazards"
The Green Party believe that the EPA as the license issuing body should be held accountable for human health effects of environmental decisions. The EPA Act may have to be amended to clarify this. Clearly to take on this responsibility the EPA would require either new resources of its own or the ability to draw on monitoring and assessment results of well-resourced, specialised units under the Department of Health.

The development of an all-island structure for environmental protection and enforcement

The Green Party agrees with the NGOs and the OECD who have observed that there are particular environmental problems, which can be dealt with more effectively at an all-Ireland level.
Therefore, the Green Party supports the promotion of coordinated activities between environmental monitoring bodies on the island of Ireland in recognition that environmental issues do not start or stop at territorial borders. We believe that much greater emphasis needs to be placed on coordinating the activities of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Environment and Heritage Service, Northern Ireland and between local authorities on both sides of the border

Review levels of fines and sanctions available to courts.

Currently the EPA can take environmental offenders to the district court for summary offences were the maximum fine is 3000 € and to higher courts for 15, 000, 000.
In practice the vast majority of cases end up in the district courts and fines imposed are derisory. The average fine imposed by courts where the EPA successfully prosecuted offenders in 2005 was only €2559.
When the Office of Environmental was established in 2003, it was billed as being a "office with teeth". More resources were going to be put into enforcement than had previously been the case. However the rate of prosecutions and fines remains both inconsistent and very low.
In its review of environmental offences the Sentencing Advisor Panel in the UK argues that is essential that fines should be set at a level at which they will have real economic impact, thereby creating sufficient pressure on a company's management and shareholders to ensure compliance and change company policy.
Consistency in sentencing was also advocated and it was suggested that fines could be expressed as a percentage of turnover, profitability or liquidity with a preference for turnover as being the most fair and that compensation orders which are rarely used by the courts could be used.

Establish a definition of contaminated land in Irish environmental law

A number of leading Irish legal experts have pointed out that much confusion and many unanswered questions regarding contaminated soil have resulted from the European Court of Justice Van de Walle Decision, which defined (in situ) contaminated soil as "waste" and assigned responsibility for remediation to the polluter. While the Minister has informed the Dáil that the Office of the Attorney General and the EPA were reviewing the relevant legislation, to date, no new legislation or guidance has been produced by the Department of the Environment on the issue.
The Green Party in government will draft legislation defining contaminated soil and assigning responsibilities for remediation in line with ECJ Van de Walle decision.

Access to environmental justice and the right to participate on environmental decision-making

Ireland has signed but not ratified the Aarhus Convention. This UN convention grants strong rights in areas of access to environmental information, right to participate in environmental decision-making and access to justice on environmental issues.
The Green Party in government will transpose the two European Directives - Directive 2003/4/EC on access to information on the environment and Directive 2003/35/EC on participation in environmental decision-making - aimed at writing the principles of the Aarhus Convention into national law without delay. The right of access to justice on environmental issues would be significantly enhanced by the proposal to have the licensing appeal system made independent of the license granting system as proposed above. The principle of access to justice would be further enhanced by the establishment of an Environmental Court as discussed above in definition of contaminated land.

Establishment of National Environmental Action Plan

Since the late 1980s the Netherlands has established a system of National Environmental Action Plans (NEPPs). These plans, which are reviews approximately every four years, seek to establish consensus on environmental priorities and targets. Each plan must be ratified by parliament. The current plan identifies seven priority areas to tackled during the lifetime of the current plan: Loss of Biodiversity, Climate Change, Over-Exploitation of Resources, Threats to Health, Threats to External Safety, Damage to the Quality of the Living Environment, Possible Unmanageable Risks.
The Green Party believes that the success of the Dutch example of setting environmental priorities and targets and of making these integral to their tripartite agreements make it an excellent model to follow. The Green Party in Government would call upon the EPA to draft an ambitious environmental plan with short-, medium- and long-term targets. The plan would be drafted according to the principles of public participation outlined above in Section 13 and require, approval of both the Dáil and the social partners.

More information on Environmental Protection