merrion street

The Minister for the Environment, Community & Local Government, Phil Hogan, T.D., has today (Tuesday 31^st January) published a plan for the implementation of the recommendations of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Review Group.

The independent Review Group, established in February 2010 to review the scope, mandate, structure and performance of the EPA, presented its report in May 2011. This report contains 58 recommendations across a number of different themes such as governance, resources and licensing.

The Minister said that, "the implementation plan contains a list of actions arising from the review, some of which are to be implemented by my Department and others which will be the responsibility of the EPA. I have prioritised certain actions for delivery in 2012, while others will be implemented over a longer period."

Some of the recommendations include:

· completion of Ireland’s ratification of the Aarhus Convention;

· clarification of the relationship between water authorities and the EPA, minimising overlap and duplication, particularly in the area of monitoring; continuation and extension of the process of making licence performance and enforcement information available on-line; and

· establishment of a specialist Advisory Committee on the interaction between the environment and human health.

The report of the Review Group and the implementation plan are available from www.environ.ie