Ireland submitted its first National Implementation Report  under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (known as the Aarhus Convention) to the secretariat of the Aarhus Convention on 31st December 2013. The Aarhus Convention lays down a set of basic...

The Department of Environment, Community and Local Government (DoECLG) has published the Water Services (Amendment) Act 2012 to regulate wastewater discharges from all homes that are not connected to the public sewer network. This is as a result of a European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgment made against Ireland in 2009 (Case C-188/08) in relation to...

The Drinking Water Directive 98/83/EC on the quality of water intended for human consumption was implemented in Ireland by S.I. No. 278/2007  – European Communities (Drinking Water) (No. 2) Regulations 2007 These Regulations prescribe quality standards to be applied, and related supervision and enforcement procedures in relation to supplies of drinking water, including requirements as to sampling frequency,...

The price of water would quadruple in Ireland if European trends are applied, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and it is therefore crucial that businesses tackle water efficiency. The average cost of cold water was €2 per cubic meter in Ireland. However, in countries like Germany this cost was as high as €8...

Domestic waste water disposal accounts for approximately one-third of residences in Ireland.  There are an estimated 497,000 (CSO, 2012) DWWTSs in Ireland treating waste water from single houses not connected to a public sewer system. The Environmental Protection Agency will implement the  The National Inspection Plan for Domestic Waste Water Treatment Systems and will incorporate...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a number of statutory roles which include: Licensing, enforcement, monitoring and research Communicating information about the quality of Ireland’s environment. The EPA is conducting a survey is to assess its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities in communicating environmental information to its stakeholders.  http://epa.ie/

The Nitrates Directive aims to reduce and prevent water pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources, with the primary emphasis on the management of livestock manures and other fertilisers.  The main provisions of this directive are: To monitor and identify polluted waters or water liable to pollution from agricultural nitrates To promote the code of...

Environmental management (EM) is the process of managing the issues associated with all the activities and technologies pertaining to an organisations environmental performance. Environmental management is based on the continuous improvement of an organisation’s environmental performance over time.  An Environmental Management  Systems (EMS) should therefore continuously change in line with the organisation’s activities and external...

Irish Water will be established as a wholly owned public water utility and will remain in public ownership. In just twenty years, it is anticipated that global demand for water will be forty percent higher than it is today so Ireland’s valuable water resources play a vital role in enhancing Ireland’s competitiveness and supporting water-dependent...

The purpose of the register is to fulfill the requirements of the Aarhus Convention, as a simple means of affording access to information about environmental emissions and transfers. The pollutant release and transfer register lists in excess of 300 industrial facilities engaged in environmentally hazardous activities. For each facility, information is provided concerning the amount...