Archived press release

Environmental Protection Agency inquiry

12 April 2006

Green groups give evidence

An inquiry established to decide whether Northern Ireland should have a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is today hearing evidence from a coalition of leading conservation organisations. The Coalition for Environmental Protection [1] will address the Review of Environmental Governance [2] which begins deliberating this morning. The green groups will set out their case for transferring responsibility for
environmental protection from DOE to a powerful new watchdog, independent of Government. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK and Ireland not to have an independent EPA.

Anthony McQuillan, Director of Conservation Volunteers, said the inquiry had been established in response to a three-year-long coalition campaign:

"We must get this right! We must ensure that, at the end of this process, Northern Ireland has a much improved system for environmental control in place; a system that helps to redress a generation of
political inertia and unwillingness to treat our environment with the priority it needs and deserves, for the benefit of everyone."

The coalition set out eight hopes it has for the new agency:

1. It should be independent of Government [3].

2. It should be integrated: a single agency should have responsibility for pollution control and the protection of our natural and built heritage.

3. It should have the power to act as a champion for the environment in areas beyond those for which it has regulatory responsibility.

4. The agency should have the power to take its own prosecutions, rather than have to refer cases to the Public Prosecution Service.

5. The agency should have the power to appeal controversial planning decisions [4].

6. The agency should not be under ministerial control but should be accountable to the NI Audit Office, House of Commons Public Accounts and NI Affairs Committees and, in the event of the restoration of the
NI Assembly, to their Public Accounts and Environment Committees.

7. The agency should be transparent in its decision-making with Board meetings held in public and all papers published on its website.

8. It should be adequately resourced to discharge its functions. Government funding should be provided in 3-5 yearly cycles. A proportion of income should be derived from pollution licensing fees, in line with the 'polluter pays' principle.

Hilary McGrady, Northern Ireland Director of the National Trust, concluded:

"Government had been roundly criticised for its failure to protect the environment in the past [5] but now is the time to look to the future. We will today describe the essential characteristics which we believe
the new agency must possess if the prospects for our natural and built environment are to improve."

Notes

[1] (back) The Coalition for Environmental Protection comprises the following nine organisations:

Conservation Volunteers Northern Ireland
Friends of the Earth
National Trust
Northern Ireland Environment Link
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Ulster Wildlife Trust
Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust
Woodland Trust
WWF (Northern Ireland)

[2] (back) The Review of Environmental Governance was established by Environment Minister Jeff Rooker and is being conducted by Tom Burke, Sharon Turner and Gordon Bell.

Tom Burke CBE is an Environmental Policy Adviser to Rio Tinto plc and a Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London.

Professor Sharon Turner is Chair of Environmental Law at Queen’s University, Belfast.

Gordon Bell retired recently as Chief Executive of Liberty IT, a successful software development company.

For further information and pen portraits, visit www.regni.info

[3] (back) The agency should be structured as a non-departmental public body.

[4] (back)The agency should have a range of responsibilities in relation to planning. It should act as a statutory consultee on planning applications and provide advice to the relevant planning authorities regarding environmental impact assessments.

[5] (back) Environment and Heritage Service performance in protecting Northern Ireland’s environment has been criticised by the Northern Ireland Audit Office, House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and Waste Management Advisory Board. It has also been the subject of BBC Spotlight and UTV Insight investigations. For many years, environmental organisations have been concerned about the agency’s performance in controlling pollution, protecting wildlife and landscapes, and conserving built heritage.

Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust