EPA defends its record on pollution control

A director of the Environmental Protection Agency has strongly defended the agency's record on pollution control and has highlighted reductions in industrial discharges achieved under its programmes. However, environmental groups have continued to criticise the EPA, claiming it provided only a "veneer" of environmental protection.

Mr Iain Maclean said the EPA was prepared to shut down any company which failed to meet pollution control requirements. He was speaking yesterday at the publication of the EPA's 1997 report on Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) licences to industry.

The EPA was processing or had dealt with 472 applications for IPCs, and more than 250 had been issued up to this week, Mr Maclean said. Two licences were refused in 1997. The licences regulate the types and volumes of pollution which may be released by a company and commit it to a programme of ongoing pollution reduction.

The licences were "not a 100 per cent guarantee. All emissions have a risk to health, they all have an impact," Mr Maclean said. "It is a question of pitching it at an acceptable level." The goal was to have companies bring their output of pollution to zero. "We don't believe anyone can really be in full compliance of their licence."

The EPA was required by statute to take cognisance of the impact on a company of achieving lower pollution levels. He added that the EPA would not shirk its responsibilities, and if a company failed to stay within its licensed pollution limits, it would be closed. "We are prepared to shut them down."

Progress on issuing of IPC licences was far too slow, according to Mr John Gormley TD of the Green Party, who said the "whole psychological basis of the EPA" was wrong. Planning controls and IPC strictures should not be carried out separately. "We have to get tough," he said. Some companies should not be given licences. "We are on the record as saying we need an EPA and licensing." However, he questioned the EPA's independence from Government Departments.

The Cork Environmental Alliance was dismissive. "Our experience of the IPC system is it is a complete farce," according to Mr Derry Chambers of the alliance. He said the EPA sometimes got companies to comply with pollution controls by raising their output limits.

Mr Maclean provided an example of such an adjustment during his press conference. "It is very easy to manufacture limits to ensure compliance," Mr Chambers said. He claimed that the EPA backed down if a company threatened to close rather than achieve pollution limits. "It is a veneer of environmental protection."

The EPA did not have the resources to tackle environmental protection here, according to Ms Gay Brabazon, a board member of the environmental group, Voice. "Our fundamental belief of the EPA is that they are underfunded and understaffed."

Voice has called for the EPA to be reconstituted into two organisations, one to deal with environmental protection and one with IPC licensing. She acknowledged that there had been improvements under the IPC system, "but it is not enough". The EPA report detailed reductions in the pollution output from Irish-based firms. More than 5,000 tonnes of various solvents were no longer released into the air due to the IPC programme, Mr Maclean said, and more than 2,000 tonnes of ammonia were no longer discharged into water courses.

He also indicated that 80 per cent of IPC facilities had had no complaints lodged against them during 1997. Most of the 1,000 complaints received by the EPA last year were against just 11 companies.