Ireland’s failure to enact legislation safeguarding water quality has resulted in referral to an EU court.
The European Commission is reportedly still pursuing legal action for not fully transposing its directive into national legislation, despite new water quality powers being signed into law two days before the EU deadline.
By 2027, all inland and coastal waters must achieve a minimum “good” status, according to the directive in question, which was issued in 2000.
It requires all groundwater and surface water – including rivers, lakes, transitional water, and coastal water – to be protected by EU member states.
EU nations are tasked with accomplishing this by developing river basin management plans and programmes that seek to reduce water pollution to levels no longer harmful to human health and ecosystems.
Despite the fact that Ireland strengthened its water quality laws with new legislation, the Commission found the changes to be “insufficient.”
Since October 2007, the Commission has urged Ireland in a number of letters to fully implement the directive.
Despite some advancement, the Commission stated that “the Irish authorities have not yet fully addressed the grievances, over 20 years after the entry into force of this directive”.
The Commission said it considers that, to date, Ireland’s efforts in these areas have been unsatisfactory and insufficient, and that is why it is referring Ireland to the Court of Justice of the European union.
The government’s Water Environment Bill passed through both houses of the Oireachtas and was signed into law two days before the deadline for transposing EU laws.
The legislation establishes new authority to regulate activities involving water abstraction and impoundment, which was one of the issues the Commission had previously raised.
The European Commission referred Ireland and several other EU nations to court on Thursday for failing to implement regulations to manage invasive alien species, which are plants and animals that have been unintentionally or knowingly introduced to a region where they are not typically found.
The 2015 regulation, which focuses on 88 species of concern, is considered crucial to implement in order to prevent them from harming native species, altering ecosystems, having an adverse effect on agriculture, and causing skin issues in humans.
In the environment of Europe, there are at least 12,000 alien species, of which 10-15% are invasive.