A new environmental agency with powers to fine polluters up to €15 million has been established under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA).
Based in Wexford, with enforcement teams in Dublin, Cork and Castelbar, the Office of Environmental Enforcement (OEE) has a mandate to deliver enhanced environmental compliance through enforcement of EPA licences issued to waste, industrial and other activities.
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Mr Martin Cullen
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In addition to the creation of the new agency, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, has also introduced a series of new measures that will "step up the pressure on polluters."
Included in the new measures are:
- the reversal of the burden of proof in certain cases so that it will be up to the defendant to prove that an activity did not cause environmental pollution.
- a new provision through which landowners can, by virtue of certain factors, be deemed to be complicit in illegal dumping activities on their lands.
- strengthening of the powers of "authorised persons" to include Gardai under the Waste Management Acts in relation to the stopping, inspection and detention of vehicles.
"Environmental excellence is vital to our economic success. Quick buck' merchants who are prepared to sacrifice our environment at the altar of personal profit must think again", Mr Cullen said today at the establishment of the new agency.
"The weak link in the past has been the lack of a dedicated, professional and fully resourced team with extensive powers for environmental enforcement.
"Today I am righting that wrong."
Mr Cullen added that the agency would be specifically targeting businesses with outdated waste management practices and said that those who "flout the law" would be held to account.
As a dedicated and distinct unit of the Environmental Protection Agency, the establishment of the OEE will result in greater attention and priority to supervising the environmental performance of local authorities.
This, the Minister said, would be done through audits of their performance, providing advice and guidance, and, in appropriate cases, giving binding directions and stand-alone body could."
The OEE is expected to build on the level of enforcement achieved by the EPA in 2002.
This included 11 prosecutions brought by the Agency in respect of waste backed up by over 1,100 monitoring visits, over 900 site visits, the analysis of over 2,000 samples, and nearly 500 warning letters.