Business as usual as Gormley misses EU river management plan deadline

Posted by Bronwen Maher on March 22, 2010 at 09:49 AM

The failure by Environment Minister and Green Party Leader John Gormley to submit important river management plans to the European Commission before tomorrow’s deadline has been strongly criticised by Labour MEP and member of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee, Nessa Childers.

 “Concerns have been expressed today by an umbrella group of environmental NGOs in relation to the adequacy and standard of the river basin plans drawn up by local Councils. I believe that the assertions made by the Sustainable Water Network (SWAN) should be fully examined and addressed by the Minister.

“Notwithstanding these concerns, the point remains that we have yet another case on our hands of the government completely failing to meet an important deadline on a critical environmental issue.

“Ireland is one of the very worst offenders when it comes to compliance with EU environmental laws and directives, coming in only slightly behind Italy and Spain, which faced 34 cases each last year.

Nessa Childers continued, “The failure to meet the river basin management plan deadline is a case of ‘business as usual’ at the Department of the Environment. Ireland faced 31 cases for failing to implement or transpose EU legislation last year with many of these cases related to non-compliance with EU environment law.

“Ireland has an ignominious record when it comes to compliance with EU environmental law. Ironically, and with a Green Party Minister who says he’s in charge, we should not have to be dragged kicking and screaming to fully enforce the laws we willingly signed up to.

“Fundamentally, compliance with EU legislation is essential if we are to achieve the overarching goal of EU Directives, which is to protect the health and wellbeing of European citizens and our environment. At the very least, one would have a reasonable expectation that a Green Party Minister would see this as a priority but Minister Gormley’s record to date is nothing to be proud of.”

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