Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

464 Chapter 16: Environmental Policy Implementation and Performance Figure 16.6  Environmental protection expenditure in EU Member States in 2021 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 % of GDP EU AT BE CZ IT PL RO Sl DE DK MT SE BG HR EE FR FI LT NL SK PT ES EL HU CY LV IE LU Source: Eurostat, 2024b Topic Box 16.8  Priority actions for Ireland on finance (EC, 2022) ■ To devise an environmental financing strategy to maximise opportunities for closing environmental implementation gaps, bringing together all relevant administrative levels. ■ To ensure an increased level of financing, and further exploit opportunities in private financing, for the environment to cover the investment needs identified across the environmental objectives and to close investment gaps. Ex post evaluation The OECD notes that ex post evaluation mechanisms – designed to assess that environmental legislation, policies and plans are working as intended – are not systematically or routinely applied in Ireland (OECD, 2023c). The lack of ex post evaluation means that valuable insights from the relevant implementing agencies on the feasibility and impacts of implementation are not identified at an early stage. Expanding the use of ex post assessment of environmental legislation and policies would help support successful implementation (OECD, 2021a, 2022b, 2023c). Data and evidence Improvements are being made in Ireland’s strategic policy infrastructure to ensure that data insights influence policy decisions. The Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service and the Irish Government Statistical Service work to provide data and insights on priority policy issues. The planned establishment of strategic policy units in government departments will further strengthen capacity and capability to provide evidence-informed insights for the government. There is also significant focus nationally on enhancing connectivity and engagement between researchers and policy practitioners and improving access to publicly funded research outputs. As well as improving the supply of evidence, there is also a need to build absorptive capacity in the policy system and improve the demand for and use of evidence by policymakers through awareness raising and capacity building. Despite these improvements, the OECD notes that Ireland’s public administration could benefit from stronger attention to data-based reform initiatives and that developing data- sharing networks and strengthening data skills across the civil service would allow Ireland to harness the potential of evidence-based decision-making (OECD, 2023c).