7 July 2015 is the deadline for Industrial Emissions Licences for existing installations operating newly prescribed activities as presented in the First Schedule of EPA Acts 1992-2013 -V2. Section 7.8 of the revised first schedule of the EPA Act now includes the requirement for the following installations to be processed where the treatment and processing,...

In Ireland, in cases where Integrated Pollution Prevention Control (IPPC) and Industrial Emissions (IE) are not applicable, water pollution control legislation is exercised through the Local Government (Water Pollution) Acts 1977-1990 and Water Services Act 2007-2013. Application for discharge to waters should be made to the relevant local authority and applications for discharge to sewer...

Reports on the implementation of EU water legislation published by the European Commission show how water policies can be a source of green and blue economic growth, with water management technologies at the heart of eco-innovation. The EU Water Framework Directive sets a framework at European level that aims to ensure clean water in sufficient...

The CLP Regulation requires hazardous chemicals to be classified, labelled and packaged appropriately before they are placed on the market.  All hazardous chemicals must be labelled and packaged to comply with the CLP Regulation by 1 June 2015. There is a transitional period of two years for those mixtures that have already been classified, labelled...

REACH 2018 seems far away but companies need to start preparing now. The last registration deadline for existing chemicals, 31 May 2018, concerns substances manufactured or imported in low volumes, between 1-100 tonnes per year. This means that a larger proportion of small and medium-sized enterprises will be registering for the first time and large...

ECHA’s website now provides detailed information on the import and export of certain very hazardous chemicals and pesticides which are subject to the Prior Informed Concern (PIC) Regulation. The new web pages contain over 10 years of regulatory information, reports and statistics that were previously made available in the European Database of Export and Import...

Two key steps in Ireland’s on-going implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) have been announced. A consultation document on the Timetable and Work Programme for the development of the 2nd cycle of River Basin Management Plans. New Regulations have also been introduced which re-assign functional responsibility for WFD implementation to local authorities, to the Environmental Protection...

EU rules on the information provided with chemical products used in the construction sector do not need to be extended to include more information on hazardous ingredients, the European Commission has decided.  The Commission report has concluded that the declarations of performance (DOPs) introduced by the 2011 Construction Products Regulation (CPR) already contain sufficient provisions on...

Non-compliance with environmental laws by member states was more than any other area of EU legislation in 2013, a European Commission report has indicated. A high proportion of EU infringement procedures related to the poor application of environment legislation. These figures include letters of formal notice and reasoned opinions, the two steps taken before a case reaches...

The new ‘Blue Guide’ has been published.  It builds on the on the content of the Guide to the implementation of directives based on the New Approach and the Global Approach (the “Blue Guide”) published back in 2000, but reflects the modernisation brought to the legal framework in the past decade.  This new version of...