Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

442 Chapter 16: Environmental Policy Implementation and Performance 2. Assessment of Ireland’s environmental performance Environmental Implementation Review 2022 The European Commission undertakes a periodic Environmental Implementation Review (EIR), designed to improve the implementation of European environmental laws and policies in Member States. The EIR process provides an opportunity to identify implementation issues and seek solutions before issues reach the infringement stage. The latest EIR for Ireland, published in 2022 (EC, 2022), identifies the following key findings for Ireland. Nature ■ Ireland has made progress in designating nature sites within its terrestrial Natura 2000 network, and the terrestrial designations are now considered to be complete. ■ There are significant knowledge and designation gaps in Ireland’s marine Natura 2000 network, especially under the Birds Directive (2009/147/EC). ■ The situation for forested areas protected under the nature directives is concerning, as half of the assessments show a bad conservation status. ■ There are still concerns about the conservation of raised and blanket bogs designated as special areas of conservation (SACs), which remains the subject of an infringement procedure. ■ Restoration work has still to be completed on many raised bog SACs and started on most blanket bog SACs. ■ Moreover, illegal turf cutting still takes place on raised bog SACs, and Ireland has not made any progress in ensuring that turf cutting carried out on blanket bog SACs is managed in a way that is compatible with the conservation of this habitat. Water ■ Water treatment continues to be a concern. The rate of compliance with the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC) is low because of the large number of non-compliant agglomerations. ■ Ireland has not yet resolved problems with the quality of its drinking water. ■ The quality of Ireland’s bathing waters is below average. ■ The country’s new water pricing system requires monitoring to ensure that it works in practice. ■ The powers to regulate water abstraction and hydromorphological controls are still not in place, as the proper legal framework is still absent. Access to justice ■ Access to justice in environmental matters remains an issue, and no progress has been achieved since the last EIR in 2019. The Commission is concerned about the cost of bringing an environmental legal action in Ireland. Waste ■ Ireland’s waste generation continues to rise and remains significantly above the EU average. ■ Landfilling and recycling rates for municipal waste and packaging waste, respectively, have declined since 2014, with more waste being sent for energy recovery. ■ Although Ireland is well above the EU average in terms of resource productivity, its circular use of material is the second lowest in the EU. Air ■ On air quality, Ireland has made some progress in reducing emissions. ■ However, emissions of ammonia have been increasing since 2011; ammonia emissions from agriculture in particular pose a significant problem. Financing ■ EU financing continues to help Ireland substantially in tackling its environmental implementation gap. ■ Ireland’s overall environmental financing of investments is estimated to have been 0.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014-2020, mostly from national sources. The country’s environmental investment needs in 2021-2027 amount to at least 0.48% of GDP, suggesting a financing gap of over 0.18% if baseline financing levels continue. ■ Since 2019, Ireland has had to pay fines of over €13 million imposed by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for non-conformity with environmental impact assessment (EIA) legislation. ■ The EIR also sets out the priority actions across different thematic areas required for Ireland to address the implementation issues identified in the review. These priority actions are highlighted in a series of topic boxes throughout this chapter.