Dr. Aoibhinn N? Sh?illeabh?in:

Related to that is recommendation 27 on page 16, which the members of this assembly also recommended, that in addition to recent developments in judicial structures in environment and planning, the State would develop an environmental court at Circuit and District Court levels. That kind of responds to the same question. One of the elements we have spoken a lot about and which came up as a huge theme across the work of the assembly was the enforcement of laws, which is difficult to do in a court system where there is so much else and there are a lot of priorities. This was to follow the idea in a lot of other countries that there is this developed environmental court wing. We are developing that now at High Court level, I believe. However, the members of the assembly also wanted to ensure we had the ability to do that at Circuit and District Court levels. One of the particular presentations we had was from a heritage officer. She asked the question, who do you call? When you see something being done, who do you call? That was a great question. Then it was, how do you go about following that through? This is something the members considered some more and then wanted to make a specific recommendation on that.