Brussels, 07/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - On 3 July, the Court of Justice upheld the European Commission decision that Ireland had failed to satisfactorily transpose directive 97/11/EC on environmental impact assessments. Among other things, the Court ruled out the retrospective approval of projects through an environmental assessment carried out after work has begun, as the Irish legislation allows. It also required that any work related to a project should be considered as forming an integral part of the project for the purposes of assessing the possible impact on the environment (case C-1215/06). The Irish authorities said that a review of their national legislation was being carried out.
The European directive 97/11/EC (which amends directive 85/337) was incorporated into Irish national law largely through the Planning and Development Act 2000, or “PDA”, and the Planning and Development Regulations 2001. These establish retention permission for work and development already carried out, even where an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is required for the project. The Court backed the Commission in its position that such retention permission should only be granted in exceptional circumstances, and must not become the norm or allow or facilitate circumvention of Community rules. The aim of the European regulation, the Court pointed out, is to prevent, from the outset, the creation of pollution or nuisances at source rather than subsequently trying to counteract their effects. Irish Environment Minister John Gormley said that amendment of national legislation was being carried out and had been accelerated. “I recognise that this is a potential weakness in the implementation of the EIA Directive,” he said in a press release. “I will be seeking agreement from the Government to bring forward appropriate amending legislation in this area in the next few weeks,” he
went on. The ECJ also ruled on the case involving a wind farm in Derrybrien. This project involves building 46 wind turbines in an area of more than 200 hectares of peat. Although the turbine construction required a request for a licence, the additional road and peat extraction works were considered as being “secondary” by Ireland and therefore exempt from environmental impact study imperatives. The ECJ initially indicated that this work was part of the whole project and because of the nature of the project, were likely to have a noticeable impact on the environment. If there was any need for proof of this, it was borne out by the fact that workers provoked a “peat slide”, that polluted the River Owendalulleegh, killed around 50,000 fish and which has had a lasting damaging impact on fish reproduction. Despite this incident in 2003, the work that resumed in 2004 was still minus any environmental impact study. The ECJ is therefore finding against the Irish authorities for having granted a licence to the Derrybrien project without it having an accompanying impact study into possible environmental repercussions. With regard to this case, Mr Gormley stressed in the same press release that the peat slide was down to negligence by the sub-contractor, who had also be been found liable by an Irish court, which, “will be examining the ECJ judgement to determine any further measures which may by required to strengthen the legislation in this area””.
Minister Gormley also said that following exchanges with the Commission, the Irish authorities have recently implemented provisions cancelling EIA obligation exemptions, which previously applied to small-scale demolition work and the construction of some private roads. (C.D./trans. rh/rt)