How green is the real Ireland?

The Department of the Environment is long on aspirations, but short of facts on achievements, writes Liam Reid this week who is Political Reporter with The Irish Times.

The Government is taking the environmental motto, "Reduce, Reuse Recycle", to heart these days. These principles appeared to be at the core of yesterday's report by the Department of the Environment, the grandly-titled, Ireland's Progress Towards Environmental Sustainability.
It recycled all of the environmental commitments already announced in the National Development Plan and it reused much of its older press releases to claim significant victories in improving the Irish environment.
And it reduced the country's environmental record to a 40-page good news only version significantly at odds with the real world version of the Ireland we inhabit.
The document describes the "achievements to date and key challenges ahead" in the last national development plan (2000 - 2006) and the one just announced last week.
The shiny cover is not the only "glossy" element to the publication. The essential problem is that it glosses over the significant failures in Irish environmental policy in the last six years, and the enormous challenges that the country has to face up to if it is not to lose its clean, green image.
The first issue to be addressed by the publication is climate change, which trots out the various measures taken by the Government to address Ireland's serious greenhouse gas emissions problem, which has us as one of the highest emitters per capita of carbon dioxide in the world. Emissions trading, greenhouse gas emissions, tax schemes, public transport, energy regulations and farm reform all get a mention.
So too does the Government's plans to spend €270 million in purchasing carbon credits abroad to make up for the shortfall in making reductions at home to meet Irish Kyoto obligations between 2008 and 2012.
The move is dressed up as a positive in that it is using flexible mechanisms to make the reductions. A reduction of a tonne of carbon in India is the same as if it is made in Ireland, the Minister states.
What is of most concern is the fact that the publication fails to state that the purchase of carbon credits is a short-term option, that does not address the fact that following 2012, there will almost certainly be a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, and a much more stringent one at that. The target Ireland will have to meet will be much more challenging.
In addition, the cost of carbon credits, currently in the region of €15 per tonne for Governments, is likely to rise sharply as more stringent targets are set for developing countries.
The publication also fails to identify any further measures, which were due to have been published last year. Radical ideas are needed if Ireland is to tackle the greenhouse gas problem. Of course the idea of a carbon tax, once championed by the department, adopted by Government and dropped in 2004, is not mentioned in the publication.
Asked about it yesterday, the Minister for the Environment said he was personally sceptical about it, and dismissed the advice of his own senior officials and environmental economists that it will work.
The document also makes much of its commitment to nature conservation, citing exacting programmes such as the reintroduction of the golden eagle and the white-tailed sea eagle, and the designation of hundreds of nature conservation sites.
However, it does not state that the number of bird sanctuary areas is among the lowest in Europe, while the Government has failed in its promise to develop conservation plans for all but four of the country's most endangered species.
On water quality, the document boasts about 96.7 per cent compliance. It outlines the huge investment made in water purifying and sewage treatment facilities, and plans for a further €5 billion spending
Mr Roche can certainly take credit for this, but he might also be given credit for the fact that there has been very little progress in reducing the number of polluted lakes and rivers. The number of spotlessly clean rivers and lakes has actually dropped from 4.6 per cent to 2.7 per cent in the last two years alone, a point curiously omitted.
On waste management, the report does outline the very significant and welcome improvement in recycling rates, and the drop in organised illegal dumping. And, to be fair, the Minister did acknowledge that too much waste was still going to landfill.
But, yet again it fails to address a key problem, identified by the EPA, which is that Irish consumers and firms, while good at recycling waste, still produce much more of it than European counterparts.
The document also outlines the various initiatives by the Government aimed at closing the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing facility, including various court actions, citing a reduction in discharges of one radioactive substance, Technetium 99. What it fails to state is that the Government is now being sued by the European Commission for failing to adhere to European procedures in its legal actions against Sellafield, a case Ireland will almost certainly lose.
On planning, the department cites its planning guidelines and strategies, combined with energy and other regulations, as contributing to the creation of sustainable development. Much is made of the National Spatial Strategy and how it will contribute to balanced regional development.
The problem is that, more than four years since its launch, the strategy has yet to even begin to deliver that, although investment is now promised under the NDP.
It boasts of stricter energy regulations which mean better insulated homes that use less energy. It omits to state that the Government signalled it would implement these in early 2002, but then introduced a four-year phased implementation period. The result is that more than 400,000 homes have been built to poorer energy standards.
Yesterday, Mr Roche said the report was "objective by any standards" in its assessment of Ireland's environmental record, citing US-based studies which rated Ireland as tenth in the world in terms of environmental legislation and protection. He said that Ireland should be proactive in its environmental legislation. "We shouldn't do it because the EU says we should do it. We should do it because we want to do it."
Why then are Mr Roche and his Government the subject of no less than 30 infringement proceedings from the European Commission for failures to implement environmental directives which it had signed up to?
Why is it that the European Court has found against Ireland in a series of cases, from failure to stem illegal dumping to ensuring that sewage plants are properly licensed?
Rather than a considered production by civil servants synthesising reports from various agencies, as it purports to be, the publication reads more like it was dashed off as a pre-election leaflet. The pity about this publication is that there are many achievements of which the State and its citizens can rightly be proud.
What it should not do is whitewash the key weaknesses there have been in the past, or play down the serious challenges. For a more balanced, objective report of the State's achievements and failures, people might turn to the Environmental Protection Agency's comprehensive account of the current state of the Irish environment from last September, The Environment in Focus 2006 , to be found on its website, www.epa.ie .