TESTIMONIALS: OIREACHTAS DEBATES

“Friends of the Irish Environment is a sinister organisation.” Frank Feighan, then Senator, (FG Roscommon)

“I would rename them the ‘enemies of the Irish people’ and proscribe both them and An Taisce.“ Diarmuid Wilson, Senator (FF, Cavan)

“The problem is that the Friends of the Irish Environment will never rest happy. People come and go in Brussels. They will continue going to Brussels, and this has been the problem from the beginning. I ask the Minister not to underestimate them. They have acosán dearg beaten to Brussels.” Éamon Ó Cuiv, TD, [FF, Galway West]

“The actions of the Friends of the Irish Environment group have been corrosive in this situation. When we went to Brussels, we were shown a file sent by this group stating that turf cutting should not continue. There was nothing in that file from Government or anyone else stating that turf cutting should continue. Who are the Friends of the Irish Environment? Whom does this group represent? It does not represent me or the people on the ground. The gloves must come off in terms of how we deal with bodies such as An Taisce and, in particular, Friends of the Irish Environment.” Frank Feighan, TD (FG Roscommon)

“I would welcome a wider debate on An Taisce and, as I have said previously, on an organisation called The Friends of the Irish Environment who have caused immense problems in planning in rural Ireland. In my constituency, they have pulled plans out of the county council to appeal them to An Bord Pleanála. Many local authority planners are scared witless by them because they just do not know what to do. If ever there was an organisation to be proscribed it should be The Friends of the Irish Environment because they have caused a great deal of trouble.” Frank Feighan, then Senator, (FG Roscommon)

And from MEP Marian Harkin: “Friends of the Irish Environment will be part of the problem, not part of the solution”.

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43 aquaculture licences for cultivating oysters, clams, and mussels have been granted by the Minister in Castlemaine Harbour, County Kerry, an estuary protected under both the Birds and the Habitats Directive.

To appeal all these licences would cost FIE €9827.65. We have appealed two, one for invasive oysters and one for invasive clams and mussels for €457.10 – funds that are sorely needed for many other urgent issues.

The Irish authorities admit the developments will result in the loss of up to 15% of the protected area but state that ‘finding of damage to that site is not necessarily incompatible with there being no adverse effects on its integrity’. An astonishing conclusion, greatly assisted by their being no assessment of the cumulative impacts through the cultivation of 43 sites of oysters, clams, and mussels. Nor was there ever a Strategic Environmental Assessment to determine where the most appropriate location in Ireland is for these massive developments.

The scientifically establish impact of the impact of exotic invasive species will undermine the site’s conservation objectives and the aquaculture appeals board must refuse the application(s).

Press Release  |  Oyster appeal   |   Clam and mussel appeal

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Call for Minister to come clean on Galway Bay Salmon Farm EIS changes

The Slow Food ‘endorsement’ in the EIS for the Galway Bay salmon farm has been removed without notice. According to an email seen by FIE, a reference to one of the producers being a member of Slow Food international resulted in ‘a lot of annoyance and hassle for Slow Food Ireland.’ The mail states: ‘BIM have since amended the piece on the Impact Statement.’

FIE is calling on the Minister to make public any changes made to the Galway Bay salmon farm EIS since the close of the public consultation period.

‘BIM can not alter an EIS on which the public has depended for its submissions without informing stakeholders. Simon Coveny as Minister must ensure openness and transparency in the EIA process though his agency BIM.’

Slow Food has stated that it does not support the farming of salmon.

Press Release

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‘Fortress Europe’ subsidies criticised
 
FIE has issued a statement supporting EU agriculture commissioner Dacian Ciolos and Ireland’s smaller farmers ahead of tommorow’s IFA protest against the increase in the minimum payment per hectare. The IFA argues that it will take money from the most productive farmers. However, ‘the increase in minimum payment is vital in maintaining the well being of rural Ireland’, the statement said.

Misinformation in the media suggested that the sole aim of EU agricultural policy is to ensure ‘viable food production’. In fact, the sustainable management of natural resources and the balanced development of rural area throughout the EU (and beyond) compose the other equally important objectives of EU agricultural policy.

Read the PR

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Read Teagasc’s response to our May 19 2013 Press Release and Morning Ireland interview on the failure to restrict livestock – which can carry cryptosporidium in their faeces – from watercourses, our response, and the survey in question. Teagasc denies that the role of the study we quoted was to assess farmer’s willingness to accept recommended protection but rather a ‘scoping study to investigate the factors which influence the willingness of farmers to apply a riparian buffer zone’. Jesuitical? Read the letter for yourselves.

The biggest error in our position was to suggest that the exclusion zone around watercourses has been reduced from 3 metres to 1.5 meters. Teagasc has confirmed to us that there is now NO exclusion or buffer zone or set back for farm animals from watercourses under current Good Agricultural and Environmental Code. They are free to roam into rivers and lakes and deposit their slurry with or without cryptorsorium anywhere they want. Compare this to Denmark (mentioned in the Teagasc letter) where despite protests and challenges a 10 metre exclusion zone is in place.

We would be pleased to hear from anyone with information on this subject.

Read Our Press Release    |    Read Teagasc’s critcism

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FIE has written to IFA President John Bryan urging him to address the issue of the set backs or buffer zones between farm animals and watercourses to help prevent the spread of cryptosporidium. The parasite, which lives in the faeces of humans and animals, can survive for up to a year in the environment. Cryptosporidium illness in Ireland is 3 times the EU average and rising fast.

The set back was reduced from 3 metres to 1.5 metres in 2004 as part of an agreement between the IFA and the DoAFF. The recommended minimum set back is 10 metres. According to a recent survey by the Agricultural advisory Body Teagasc, only 7% of farmers willing to accept recommended 10 metre buffer zone. 53% would not accept the recommendation at all, and the remainder would accept the protection if they were paid to do so.

Given subsidies which can comprise 100% of a farmer’s income, it is very hard for the public to understand why they should be allowed to resist the recommended buffer zones and so continue to infect our drinking water with parasites like cryptosporidium.

Press Release and Letter

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FIE has found that the National Bioenergy Strategy is being developed by consulting only selected stakeholders at the earliest stage of bioenergy strategy development. A procedure whereby the Department develops a draft bioenergy strategy with business and then attempts to retrofit other considerations into it is a recipe for failure when it comes to integrating environmental, social and development policies into energy policy. We consider that the current approach n breach of the Aarhus Convention and have requested that they initiate an open public consultation. With more notice we will be able to produce a more detailed response. In the circumstances, we focus on just one issue– the impact of bioenergy on air quality.

Read the submission

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We are today publishing a letter sent to Minister Simon Coveney last week by one of the world’s leading experts on sea lice infestations of salmon farms.

In this letter, he explained that while he does ‘not normally get involved in such debates’ he ‘was surprised at some of the recent incorrect information in the media about whether sea lice from salmon farms can cause problems on wild fish’ and felt it important ‘that I provide you with best scientific information’.

Professor Costello demonstrates that a key consequence is that even at a level of a single lice per salmon which may pose no danger to the farmed salmon themselves (and is below the Irish protocols requiring treatment), ‘If there are a million fish on the farm with 1 egg–bearing louse each, the farm may release 500 million lice larvae’. He explains that ‘surface waters tend to blow towards the shore due to the day–time onshore winds’. Thus ‘sea lice are moved towards the seashore and into estuaries so they congregate in the path of salmonids migrating to sea.’

Press Release   |   Read the full letters and the research papers Professor Costello attached to his mail to the Minister

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Four years after first asking An Bord Pleanala to determine if the vast industrial extraction of turf from the Irish midlands did or did not constitute ‘development’ or ‘exempted development’ a swinging judgment has been handed down in FIE’s favour.

ALL industrial scale extraction – many of the sites are over 100 hectares – which previously was exempted development has since 20 September 2012 (the day the 2011 Habitats Regulations were signed into law) required development consent.

FIE has already been to the High Court once to successfully have the courts quash the Board’s dismissal of our previous referral and now we will undoubtedly face long legal challenges to the Board’s ruling. Under the Management Plan for the Shannon Region, any authority would ‘first have to satisfy itself that the licence would promote an improved quality of water in the river’ – clear impossible.

It is imperative that all operations must cease until the law is complied with, given the damage to the environment that these activities are causing – but the local authorities show no signs of enforcement activities and An Bord Plenala has no role to play after its decision.

Read the case summary   |   Press Release   |    Visit our peat splash page 

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Ireland was ‘asleep at the wheel’ as ash dieback disease swept through Europe and must now redouble its effort to prevent the disease from disseminating Ireland’s native trees. This disease came into Ireland because Irish seed was exported to be raised in Holland in spite of the spread of the disease in Europe since 1992. Plant health controls were sacrificed in the interest of free trade.

The authorities do not have the resources to track the spread of the disease alone and must call on the voluntary environmental organisations and groups around the country and employ “ready–to–use system” GIS developed elsewhere to help monitor the spread of the disease.

It is absolutely critical that we identify ash trees that are naturally resistant to form the seed nursery of the future.

Read the submission   |   The full Press Release

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Right to be consulted over new UK Nuclear Plant 

Dear Councillor; 

We are writing to you because you may not be aware of the proposed construction of the first nuclear plant in the United Kingdom since the 1990’s and your constituents’ right to be consulted before development is allowed to proceed. 

The plant is proposed at Hinkley Point in Somerset on the Severn Estuary beside adjacent plants. 

The issue is that the UK Government was required to notify Ireland (and any other neighbouring countries that might be affected) if there could be any transboundary effects under a convention named for the Finish town where it was signed in 1991 – the ESPOO Convention on transboundary environmental impact assessment.

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1. What has happened to the policy consultation?
2. We need a Climate Responsibility Act, with targets and real oversight, because the climate crisis is more serious than the fiscal crisis.
3. Irish legislation should be in keeping with EU legislation.
4. The legislation should be capable of covering black carbon and other forcing agents.
5. Wider benefits and considerations of climate policy need to be covered by the legislation.
6. Ireland needs to engage with agricultural and food policy for greenhouse gas emissions reduction rather than hoping it goes away.

Read the submission

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As the smoky coal ban is extended to another 6 cities on 1 May, FIE has welcomed yesterday’s agreement between Noithern Ireland and the Republic to commissioning a joint North–South study on all–island air quality. In particular, the study will examine the issue of residential burning of smoky coal.

The failure to develop an all Ireland smoky coal ban has significantly hindered public policy,

Because of cross border issues, not only can dirty coal be purchased across border but the failure to cooperate extends to making levies, such as carbon taxes, impossible, even though these would also counter the financial incentive to use dirty fuels – such as coal and peat.

Read more in our PR   |  Source: see the Northern Ireland PR

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A signal victory for Peter Sweetman, one of the founders of Friends of the Irish Environment in 1997, was not only to force the first case to ever be referred from an Irish Court to the EU Court of Justice, but also to advance and reinforce EU environmental law.

Peter Sweetman and his long term advisor Greg Casey have advanced environmental protection by drawing out of the courts a new and more powerful definition of the ‘damage’ to protected priority sites. The judgement points out that it is clear that EU law intends much more than solely to prevent the ‘irreparable destruction’ of a protected area – even a ‘partial’ destruction will undermine the ‘integrity’ of the site. The area of limestone pavement in question was only 1.4 hectares out of 202 hectares – but it was destruction of part of the protected site and the Court has ruled it may not be permitted. 

The Judgment also confirms the principle that it is not necessary to prove that a project will have lead to ‘irreparable destruction’ to refuse it permission. ‘The correct test is to determine if there is no reasonable scientific doubt that project will not have lasting adverse effects on the integrity of the site in the light of the best scientific knowledge in the field.’ The Court ruled that ‘The precautionary principle should be applied’.’

Hats off to Peter, and the many others who bring cases – voluntarily and at great risk – before our Courts to protect the environment.

Link to FIE PR   |   UK Human Rights Watch comment   |   Sweetman interviewed in the Village Magazine   |   Irish Times 

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FIE has launched a legal challenge seeking the suspension of the development of the proposed UK nuclear plant in Somerset, England until consultations with the Irish public are completed. The challenge has been made to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe for the failure of the United Kingdom in compliance with its obligations under the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context.

The Convention requires that the opportunity provided to the public of potentially affected Parties is ‘equivalent to that provided to the public of the Party of origin’.

‘The United Kingdom did not consult with any of the states which might be affected by a nuclear accident at the plant on the grounds that “the likely impacts determined through a thorough EIA do not extend beyond the county of Somerset and the Severn Estuary”. 

‘It would appear that the current Irish Government’s concern to complete export energy treaties with the United Kingdom has unduly undermined its regard for the rights of the Irish people to partake in this public consultation process.’

 Press Release   |   Submission   |    Austrian Technical Report

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The Environmental Impact Assessment for the new UK nuclear plant Hinkley Point C in Somerset did not analysis the impacts of severe accidents that could affect neighboring countries, including Ireland. 

The British authorities have accepted the statements in the EIA that claim ‘the likely impacts determined through a thorough EIA do not extend beyond the county of Somerset and the Severn Estuary.

FIE have written to the Minister for the Environment to ask him to exercise his right under the UN Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context [ESPOO], to require a public consultation period open to all countries that may be affected by trans–boundary impacts.

As It cannot be proven beyond doubt that a large release cannot occur, we would be foolish not to examine what the impacts could be in the event of a nuclear disaster on our doorstep.’

Press Release with links    |     Map of potential contamination

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You can contact YOUR councillors through this site.

http://contact.ie/contact-local-politicians

Letter to councillors

5 March 2013

Dear Councillor;

We are this week running an advertisement in the Roscommon Herald to initiate a campaign seeking the public’s assistance in bringing to an end the wide scale unauthorised extraction of peat across the Irish midlands.

The extent of this has been demonstrated in our Reports to the national and European authorities for three years and while legislation has been revised to assist in controlling these activities – such as the elimination of the 7–year rule – on the ground nothing has happened.

Not a single Environmental Impact Assessment has yet been done on the industrial peat extraction in Ireland, including by Bord na Mona. In a test case we have taken in Westmeath, the EPA has required the first two such assessment, but there are thousands of hectares of Ireland’s midland raised bogs that are being actively and increasingly devastated without controls or protection.

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A full page advertisement in the Roscommon Herald this week begins a public ‘whistleblowers’ campaign targeting the industrial extraction of turf in the Irish midlands.

‘Say Goodbye to Ireland’s Bogs’ is appealing to the public to contact them with details of the extraction a confidential 24–hour hotline to take calls and an email address.

‘We want ordinary people across Ireland to help assess the scale of this problem – even just by identifying the locations of industrial peat extraction in their own townlands. On site visits, we have found sites more than 100 hectares in extent with no planning permission or licensing controls. Many are discharging directly into rivers and lakes, causing untold damage to wildlife and water quality.’

FIE has also written to all the Councilors asking them to ask their Planning Authority if they have completed the Register of Extractive Industries where the are required to record these sites.

Read the full Press Release with all the links

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TURF CUTTING

A video of our presentation to the EU Petitions Committee in 2011 and in 2012

The PowerPoint slides shown during the 2012 video.

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As people from all over Ireland head to Galway to protest against the Irish Government’s plans for a 15,000 tonne salmon farm in Galway Bay, Friends of the Irish Environment have lodged a formal complaint with the Ombudsman for Local Government.

The complaint demonstrates that the proposal undermines the National Development Plan 2007 – 2013, which placed a moratorium on the expansion of salmon farming until the sea lice issue has been addressed.

The moratorium was announced in July 2010 after a Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Irish Seafood National Program 2007 – 2013, and was published as part of the National Development Plan 2007 –2013. Less than a year later the Minister for the Marine provided an extra €2 million to BIM for the proposed salmon farm which would itself double national production.

The Galway protest is tied in to protests against fish farms in Canada, Scotland, and Norway taking place over this weekend.

Read the complaints   |   The Press Release with links to documentation   |   Campaign Updates

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FIE is today making available on its website a new Report from the EU due to be made public in the coming days which makes stringent criticism of Ireland’s complaint–handling mechanisms relating to EU environmental law.

According to the ‘Study on environmental complaint–handling and mediation mechanisms at national level’, environmental complaint procedures in Ireland are ‘not established by law, nor are they directly regulated by any legal provision establishing rights and obligations.’

The Report identifies the key failings in Ireland’s complaint system; including the failure to allow the EPA to be scrutinized by the Ombudsman and the lack of an independent body with enforcement powers over local planning authorities.

 FIE has sent a copy to the Minister for the Environment and asked him to provide a response to the critique.

Press Release   |   The Study   |  Letter to Minister

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