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

Chapter 16: Conclusions WE NEED VISION AND IMPLEMENTATION TO PROTECT IRELAND’S ENVIRONMENT AND OUR HEALTH AND WELLBEING SOE 2: Full Implementation Full Implementation of Existing Environmental Legislation and a Review of the Governance Around the Coordination on Environmental Protection Across Public Bodies Full implementation of, and compliance with, existing environmental directives and legislation is a must to protect the environment. A review of environmental governance is needed to develop structures to achieve full implementation. This review should also develop recommendations for governance structures that help with improving coordination and linking up environmental protection work across different departments, organisations and regulatory bodies. The implementation of environmental legislation needs to improve across several directives, regulations and plans. There are currently 16 infringement cases and four European court cases being pursued against Ireland by the European Commission for breaches of environmental law across different areas (Chapter 15). One recent example is the case that the European Commission is currently taking to the European Court of Justice against Ireland in relation to the designation of SACs under the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC). The Commission is reporting that 154 Sites of Community Importance (out of 423) have not yet been designated as SACs in the Atlantic biogeographical region, that site- specific conservation objectives have not been established for 87 sites and that the necessary conservation measures have not been established at any of the 423 sites. 5 Another infringement case is related to the slow progress being made in closing out the infrastructure improvements needed in sewage collection and treatment in order to meet the requirements of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC). In 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union declared that Ireland has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive. Ireland now risks substantial fines if Irish Water does not promptly complete the works needed to ensure that waste water from all large urban areas is properly treated before it is released into rivers, estuaries and coastal waters. The European Commission, in its Environmental Implementation Review (EIR) for Ireland (EC, 2019b), has mapped out national strengths, opportunities and weaknesses in how EU environmental policies and laws are applied. As outlined in Chapter 15, Ireland’s EIR 2019 report notes that, in general, the country has good air quality, that soils are in good condition – except for peat 5 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_1235 areas – and that important steps have been taken to move towards a circular economy. It found that progress has been made in several areas. The EIR stated that Ireland faces several significant environmental challenges, notably in the areas of water management, nature protection and access to justice. The assessment did not cover climate change. At a local level the investigation of complaints and the enforcement of legislation is an essential part of protecting the environment. In 2018, local authorities, the NPWS and the EPA received approximately 80,000 environmental complaints (Chapters 6 and 15). Local authorities dealt with over 78,000 of these complaints, with waste and litter being the issues that local authorities received the most complaints about. These complaints data are striking as they show the scale of issues that environmental enforcement authorities deal with annually at a more local level. The implementation of environmental legislation and environmental actions covered in national and sectoral plans needs to be measurable, verifiable and reportable. There is a need to further integrate indicator tracking and performance accounting across all plans and programmes. The performance data should be publicly available, for example, through the publication of annual indicator reports. This needs to be coupled with a focus on the full implementation and enforcement of existing environmental legislation. Chapter 15 provides some suggested enablers for improving Ireland’s implementation, integration and monitoring of environmental legislation, policy, plans and programmes. A review of governance structures would allow for the identification of areas for improvement in the coordination of environmental protection work. The aim would be to develop recommendations for structures that work to achieve full implementation and enforcement of environmental legislation and policies and more effective protection of Ireland’s environment. The review could cover the overall governance structures needed to ensure that Ireland’s policies and governance structures are working together in an integrated way to protect Ireland’s environment into the future. 435