EU membership has helped drive Ireland’s green agenda

Ireland has signed up to the EU ‘Green Deal’, the ambitious plan to lead the world on climate change which demands immediate and significant action by member states

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen addressing a joint sitting of the Dáil and Seanad. During her visit she said Ireland has the potential to become a 'renewable superpower'. Photograph: Maxwell Photography

Even the most neutral of observers will agree that Ireland’s commitment to environmental issues was almost non-existent prior to our membership of the European Union. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1977 that the word “environment” was attached to a government department.

The European Commission’s first environmental action programme was published in 1973, the year Ireland became a member of what was then the EEC. Since then the comprehensive body of environmental policy developed by the EU has served to transform Irish environmental policy, which now not only keeps pace with broader EU policy but in some cases outstrips it in terms of innovation and ambition. Currently, there are 200 pieces of environmental legislation in Ireland, mostly derived from EU environmental law, regulating key environmental dimensions such as water quality, waste management, nature preservation, chemicals, air quality, the environmental effects of agriculture and industry, and pollution of our waterways.