The Republic's failure to adopt sustainable development has been criticised by Irish environmentalists, writes Environment Editor Frank McDonald.
Ireland has failed to embrace sustainable development - and some of the examples of this failure are "stark and fundamental", according to a coalition of environmental groups.
In Telling It Like It Is, published to coincide with the opening this weekend of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, they put forward a detailed dossier illustrating "10 years of unsustainable development in Ireland".
The coalition, styling itself Earth Summit Ireland, includes An Taisce, Birdwatch Ireland, Coastwatch, Friends of the Irish Environment, the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, the Irish Doctors' Environmental Association and the Irish Wildlife Trust.
Its report, funded in part by the Department of the Environment, claims that the environment in Ireland has been neglected and says that environmental groups have been sidelined in the policy-making process, despite commitments made at the first earth summit in 1992.
It says that the Government prepared its position papers on the issues to be discussed in Johannesburg without any prior consultation.
"Our voices and concerns were not being expressed coherently; or, where they were expressed, they were not heard."
Conceding that sustainable development is a complex subject, the groups decided to "turn to the storytelling tradition to create a mosaic picture of Ireland's progress or, for the most part, lack of progress towards sustainability" in their report.
With Irish carbon dioxide emissions set to overshoot the Kyoto Protocol target by a wide margin, it condemns the Government for proceeding with two new peat-fired power stations which will consume 1,500 hectares of peatlands a year for the next 15 years.
Despite the European Court of Justice finding that Ireland holds a special responsibility for the conservation of raised bogs, which also serve as carbon "sinks", the EU Commission approved a cross-subsidy for "these economically unviable power plants".
Although transport-related emissions of carbon dioxide are growing faster than any other sector, the report complains that the Government's "traffic-inducing" motorway programme was not only agreed with the EU but will be substantially funded by the EU.
It also highlights a lack of genuine public consultation over specific road plans, citing the example of the N6 in Co Galway, on which over half of the 3,226 questionnaires returned had been discarded because they were not in the pre-paid envelopes supplied.
Meanwhile, the Kildare bypass would "destroy the unique natural habitat of Pollardstown Fen and the Curragh aquifer".
Given the choice between "impacting on the National Stud or unique landscape features, the State chose to sacrifice the aquifer and fen", the report claims.
It criticises Dúchas, the Heritage Service, for reversing its recommendation that planning permission should be refused for the Big Meadow site in Athlone, a home to the globally endangered corncrake - it was only saved by An Bord Pleanála.
On housing, it claims that none of the measures introduced by the Government had tackled the problem of unsustainably high land costs.
It also expresses doubt that the National Spatial Strategy will curb car-dependent one-off houses with septic tanks or define a limited number of regional growth centres with a sufficient critical mass to deflect "over-heated development" in and around Dublin.
Referring to quarries, the report says that less than half are operating under planning constraints. One of the biggest, on the north shore of Bantry Bay, is operated by Tarmac and exports more than one million tonnes of limestone a year for roads in the UK.
It criticises the fact that an Irish-registered factory trawler, the Atlantic Dawn, which is capable of processing 350 tonnes of pelagic fish per day, is operating "in the waters of indebted Mauritania" on the west coast of Africa, with its catch freighted to Europe.
One of the few environmental successes highlighted in the report is the 15 cent levy on plastic supermarket bags, which has reduced their use by up to 95 per cent. Indeed, it has been so successful that the UK is considering following Ireland's example.
Other issues covered by Telling It Like It Is include intensive farming, waste management, forestry, aquaculture, fluoridation and discrimination against Travellers.
Further information may be obtained via the Internet at:
www.earthsummit-ireland.org
The UN Summit on Sustainable Development reaches its climax with the attendance of 100 world leaders on September 2nd. Officials gather in Johannesburg this weekend for preliminary discussions.
Frank McDonald will be reporting on the gathering from South Africa on Monday.