 FIE has made three major submissions to recent Government consultations. On waste, the consultation document “Towards a new National Waste Policy Discussion Document” ignored more than three years of work. The “International Review of Waste Management Policy”, published in 2009 with 65 Annexes, the largest waste policy study ever undertaken in Ireland, at significant cost to the taxpayer, by an international consultancy was effectively ignored in the consultation document. Two further submissions relate to the C-66/06 Judgment of the European Court of Justice about activities in the countryside that damage the environment. The Government has moved controls for assessment of hedgerows, archaeological monuments and land use changes from the Department of the Environment to the Department of Agriculture, who do not have the skills for this work and who have production targets to meet that conflict with environmental protection. The Department of the Environment has kept the protection of wetlands under its own control – and that of peat extraction – but has left a threshold for wetland assessments that effectively deregulates a significant proportion of wetlands in Ireland, including most ponds, springs, streams, dune slacks and wet woodland relics and could significantly undermine the conservation function of larger wetlands. The failure to undertake a Regulatory Impact Analysis is a central concern of FIE's submission as this would have highlighted the problems. Waste policy consultation | New EIA Regulations C-66/06 Agriculture | New EIA Regulations C-66/06 Environment // Read More // | 
FIE has appealed a licensce for more expansion of the mussel industry in Dunmnanus Bay. We cite the Marine Institute's recognition that toxic contamination continues in Kenmare, Bantry and Dunmanus Bays when it excluded these bays from a reduced sampling programe in November 2011.
FIE's submission to the Peatlands Council's Public Consultation questions if the Council is meeting its terms of reference or simply sending the fool further with yet another consultation period. Has the Council advised on the recent scientific and policy review BOGLANDS by the EPA? Has the Council clarified Ireland's 'obligations to protect key habitats'? Has it determined the available assistance from the State? All of these were part of its terms of reference - as well as this public consultation on a national peatlands policy. 
FIE has escalated its campaign to prevent the doubling of stocking rates on Ireland's Disadvantaged Areas, much of which are the sensitive mountains and blanket bogs of rural Ireland.
FIE has written to the Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney asking him to reconsider the new requirement for hill farmers to double their stocking rates to qualify for grant payments. Changes recently announced to the Disadvantaged Area Scheme which includes 100,000 farmers, require them to double their stocking rate from one sheep to two per hectare.
DECISION IGNORED EU COMMISSIONER RULING 
FIE has found that in spite of an unequivocal statement by the European Commissioner for the Environment that no extension to the slurry spreading season be permitted in Ireland, the Minister for the Environment extended this period into the last two weeks of October. This period saw some of the heaviest rainfall in Irish history, washing the slurry into drinking water sources across Ireland.
The recently announced appointment of a long standing Director of the EPA, however competent, to the top EPA post will mitigate against the implementation of the recommendations of the 2011 ‘Review of the Environmental Protection Agency'.
FIE's work on analysing the failure by Local Authorities to provide clean and wholesome drinking water has shown that 1,153,732 people are receiving water that is seriously and persistently over the legal parameters. These supplies have been placed by the EPA on the Remedial Action List which the law requires the public to be notified - but there has been virtually no public notification whatsoever. And the Remedial Action List only reveals public supplies in need of urgent action. No mention is made of private or public group water schemes which cover a further 500,000 people and are generally poorer in quality.
Friends of the Irish Environment said the proposal risk based inspection programme for septic tanks would not meet the terms of the European judgment. 
FIE has welcomed Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Simon Coveney, TD, decision to refuse the Federation of Irish Fishermen's [FIF] request to allow the commercial fishing of sea bass in the Celtic Sea.
Angry at the Government's new Regulations and hard line on the end to turf cutting on protected bogs, the Turf Cutters have withdraw from the Government's mediation structure, the Peatland's Council. 
FIE has called on the Government to ensure that the word ‘environment' is included in the High Level Design of the Petroleum Safety Framework for Ireland. In a submission to the consultation period, FIE has asked that the word ‘safety' be defined in the legislation and that in addition to specifying protection for ‘life', the ‘environment' is also specifically named for protection.
FIE has welcomed the clarification provided by the European Commission on the imposition of fines and penalties as long as Ireland fails to address poorly managed or controlled septic tanks which may cause significant harm to the environment and human health.