EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Ireland’s Environment – An Integrated Assessment 2020 WE NEED VISION AND IMPLEMENTATION TO PROTECT IRELAND’S ENVIRONMENT AND OUR HEALTH AND WELLBEING SOE 1: Environmental Policy Position A National Policy Position for Ireland’s Environment There are many interlinkages and dependencies between environmental policies and legislation. These links could be better connected and reinforced through an integrated national policy position on protecting Ireland’s environment. Nationally we tend to examine separately how different parts of the environment function and how we address challenges such as climate, biodiversity, water, air and waste. The different environmental challenges are covered by different departments, public agencies/organisations and local authorities. Implementation is carried out under different pieces of national legislation, policies, plans and programmes. However, modern environmental problems are complex and cross-cutting and need to be tackled in an integrated way. Currently, there is no overall national policy position for Ireland’s environment that joins up all these areas. There are several examples internationally of national plans, objectives and strategies for the environment that could help with developing a national policy vision for Ireland on the environment. These are covered in a background research paper for this report (O’Leary et al. , 2020b). The objective of the national policy position would be to deliver more effective protection of Ireland’s environment through more comprehensive integrated policy development and effective implementation. We need to have policies that work together under one policy position to integrate all of these environmental components. We should look at a whole of system approach to environmental protection and we need to think more about how environmental systems fit together and interact. We need to have policies that work together under one umbrella to integrate all these functionalities. This could be done through a national policy position that covers all environmental issues. Aerial view of Poulnasherry Bay, Co. Clare 434