EU legal action - Ireland’s green image under threat
The European Commission is taking the Government to court on a range of health and environmental charges, including the failure to tackle noxious odours at State-run sewage-treatment plants.
Mr Roche is being disingenuous when he claims not to have been warned by Brussels about breaches of the environmental rules. This is not the first occasion the Government’s lax attitude towards environmental issues has been criticised.
Instead of complaining about the breach of protocol at being told about the EU legal move by the media, Mr Roche should be more concerned about the serious environmental breaches outlined in the Brussels broadside.
The facts speak for themselves. Legal action is being taken in the European Court of Justice on foot of complaints about the smells coming from several Irish treatment plants, including the country’s largest at Ringsend in Dublin.
Ireland stands accused of flagrantly flouting EU rules on waste management, which require member states to ensure sewage plants do not give off unpleasant smells.
According to Deputy John Gormley of the Green Party, the administration has had two years to address the odour problem at the Ringsend plant. And according to the EU, legislation promised by the Government to better regulate the management of such plants has not materialised.
The commission statement also depicts water supplies contaminated by bacteria caused mainly by land-spreading of animal wastes and leaking domestic waste-water treatment systems.
Furthermore, it highlights the State’s involvement in the environmental disaster triggered by Ireland’s largest wind farm project at Derrybrien in Co Galway, where initial work caused a landslide that damaged property and killed some 50,000 fish.
Ireland has also been slow to meet the terms of the Kyoto agreement, drawn up to tackle global warming.
In yet another legal action, Ireland has received a written warning for failing to comply with a European Court judgment which condemned Ireland’s failure to provide reports on mandatory EU measures to protect the ozone layer.
Mr Roche may present a plausible and articulate countenance of government. But he cannot brush off the serious charges levelled at Ireland by the EU for taking what can only be described as a cavalier attitude towards major environmental issues.
Ireland’s image as a green oasis on the western fringes of an increasingly industrialised Europe is bound to suffer as a result of the Government’s failure to put the country’s environmental house in order.
Tourists are already being ripped off by an industry driven by unbridled greed in a country where they have to pay through the nose for drink, food and accommodation. Yet, despite rampant exploitation, many people come back again and again to spend their holidays here because they believe Ireland offers a quality of life rapidly vanishing elsewhere.
What continues to attract them is not just the rugged scenery for which Ireland is justly famous, but also the relatively clean water and fresh air which this country can still boast.
Ireland can ill-afford the negative publicity surrounding legal action by the commission over sewage plants that stink, a State wind farm venture that trampled all over the environment, and the Government’s failure to deliver on measures to combat global warming.
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