EPA calls for a new national environmental policy with a ‘shared vision’ on how to ‘transform our energy, transport, food and industrial sectors’

Friends of the Earth will write to all party leaders in the Dáil asking them how their election manifestos will reflect the EPA’s challenge

Commenting on today’s landmark State of the Environment report from the EPA, published every four years, Friends of the Earth chief executive, Oisín Coghlan, said:

“This report is very stark, but also visionary. And of course extraordinarily timely.

“Today’s EPA report is stark because it finds that Ireland’s environmental performance ‘is nowhere near good enough’ and that our governments ‘have for too long merely aimed to ‘get by’ environmentally, aspiring to only minimum standards, and then in many instances not even meeting those’.

“But the report also holds out hope for a positive future. It points out that various government actions are having positive impacts, albeit not fast enough. It underlines that we absolutely need a healthy environment to protect human health and prosperity in future. And it calls for a ‘shared vision’ on the ‘strategic leap’ we need ‘to protect our own existence’ to be set out in a new national policy statement on the environment. 

“Most importantly, this report is extraordinarily timely as we approach a General Election. It is a clear challenge to all political parties to set out their positive vision for the transformation this report says we need in our energy, transport, food and industrial systems.

“Friends of the Earth will be writing to the leaders of all the political leaders in the Dáil to ask them how they will respond to the EPA’s call to step up rather than just get by on the environment.

Notes

1. The EPA report is available online here: https://www.epa.ie/news-releases/news-releases-2024/progress-economic-prosperity-and-health-all-threatened-unless-ireland-increases-the-scale-pace-and-ambition-of-environmental-action-.php