EU Commission highlights Irish failures in access to justice

by Tony Lowes - Friends of the Irish Environment Fri Mar 19, 2010 07:47 tony at friendsoftheirishenvrionment dot org

Commission issues final warning on four environmental cases
The European Commissions has upped the ante on legal proceedings concerning a wide range of Irish failings to protect the environment.
The European Commission has sent a final warning to Ireland over four cases where it has failed to comply with European Court of Justice rulings concerning illegal development and developments that may harm the natural and man-made heritage of the countryside and marine mammals.

A major warning - that went to both Ireland and the UK - requires that both countries provide ‘affordable’ access to justice.

A final warning in environmental impact assessment cases concerns Ireland's failure to ensure that work on projects that might require an environmental impact assessment (EIA) does not start before the necessary assessment is carried out. Retention permissions which retrospectively approve such work is contrary to the EIA Directive.

At Derrybrien, County Galway, Court pointed out that there had been a failure to undertake a proper prior impact assessment of the a wind farm which caused a major peat slide. In this case, the Irish authorities agreed to undertake an EIA to look in detail at further potential issues but none has been done.

Another case relates to a Court ruling in November 2008 which found that the thresholds for undertaking an environmental impact assessment for certain types of projects, including the restructuring of rural landholdings and water management projects for irrigation or land drainage, were too high. This led to loss of wetlands and other habitats and destruction of archaeological remains without any EIAs ever being required. No legislation has been adopted to address the issue.

The most important warning concerns Ireland and the United Kingdom’s failure to provide its citizen with access to justice that is not ‘prohibitively expensive’.

A spokesman for the environmental lobby group Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] said that ‘While we understand many of the cases highlighted by the Commission today are being addressed in amendments to the Planning legislation, fundamental changes to the Irish justice system are also now required’.

European Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik pointed out that "When important decisions affecting the environment are taken, the public must be allowed to challenge them. This important principle is established in European law. But the law also requires that these challenges must be affordable.”

FIE claims that ‘In spite of the fact that the law explicitly states that such challenges must not be ‘prohibitively expensive’, legal proceedings in Ireland can be ruinously so. There is no doubt whatsoever that the potential financial consequences of losing challenges is preventing NGOs and individuals from bringing cases against public bodies and so denying citizens their legal rights'.

Also being challenged by the Commission is the well established procedure in Irish law requiring those seeking to have projects halted required to give expensive and often unaffordable undertakings of deposits that may be used to compensate defendants if an injunction is eventually not confirmed by a full court proceeding.

The Commission alleges that such undertakings are ‘serious impediment to the use of such injunctions, which are essential for temporarily halting operations that may have a potentially damaging impact on the environment while their legality is being assessed.’
.
Failure to act on final written warnings, also known as Reasoned Opinions, can result in a summons to the Court of Justice.

by old codger - pensioner Fri Mar 19, 2010 15:13

The people of Rossport have been calling for years for the Irish government to ratify the Arhus agreement . Minister Ryan is fully aware that the government is deliberately denying the people their rights and is also conversant with the laws of this treaty but he choses to share in the crimes of of Fianna Fail.
WHY HASN'T THE EU DONE ANYTHING ABOUT THIS?

by Realist Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:19

Unless and until the EU actually takes some real and significant form of remedial action (in practice), I feel it is best to assume that this "threat" is nothing more than "window dressing" -- in other words, just another cheap, mean, and shoddy ploy to hoodwink the public into thinking something of significance is about happen at the hands of the EU, for the purpose of lulling them into a false sense of security: which promotes inaction in the "activist" section of our society.

How I hope the EU will prove me wrong on this occasion.

Also, Tony Lowes has been well aware of the United Nations Aarhus Convention Agreement (which the Republic of Ireland signed in 1998, and have made a sick joke of ever since) for many years now, and yet he does not make a single mention of this core issue in this article?

I wonder why that might be? -- and I wonder if he might care to explain this strange omission of his in this article (of his)?

by Esker Sat Mar 20, 2010 16:12

Through the use of formal petitions, the EU has been provided with a number of first-class opportunities to do something (of value) about the rampant environmental abuses taking place in the Republic of Ireland during recent years, and they have done SFA (Sweet F**k All) as far as I know.

The petitions in question include the sample one at:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kellybrendan/petition1/feb-...2.htm

Don't mind them, with the EU it's all "big talk" (and no action).

The EU completely ignored everything in the Petition made to them at the Internet address above, and National Toll Roads (the owners of Celtic Waste/Greenstar I understand) were allowed to "sail through" to success, with the greatest of ease, and now have their ignorant rubbish dump fully operational on top of -- almost -- the 10,000 year old "An Sli Mor" (the "Great Highway" of ancient Ireland), otherwise known as the Esker Riada (or "Magna Via" if you live and/or work in the Vatican), and in all probability the most important (by far) of the Ireland's natural heritage monuments.