Stop Enda abolishing the Department of Environment

On his re-election as Taoiseach, Enda Kenny announced he was restructuring Ministerial Departments to better reflect the new Government's priorities. With that, he promptly abolished the Department of the Environment and scattered its functions across three Departments.

We have very little time to get this decision reversed. If this goes ahead, the words ‘environment’ and ‘heritage’ would be dropped from the titles of any Minister or Department, and Ireland would become the only EU member state without a Minister for the Environment.

We're asking you to do a couple of things:

1. Email your TD and ask them to write to Enda Kenny on your behalf to reverse his decision. You can email your TDs by clicking here. It'll only take a minute - we've already drafted some text that you can use - but it could make all the difference as it focuses TDs and officials on the issue.

2. Sign the petition that will go directly to Enda Kenny. We have joined forces with Birdwatch Ireland, Irish Wildlife Trust, An Taisce and VOICE to create this, and since Monday almost 5,000 people have signed it already. We need to double that - starting with you.

3. Spread the word: Share this Facebook post on the campaign and retweet this tweet.

Nature deserves a voice at the cabinet table. Please lend us yours.

Thank you,

Oisin and all the Friends of the Earth team

P.S. We can stop Enda's environmental vandalism if we act together and quickly. Do email your TDs now, it'll only take a minute.

Read our press release here. You can hear me discuss the issue on RTE's Drivetime here. My interview starts at 6 mins 30 seconds (after Peter McVerry).