Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 18 April 2019

Public Accounts Committee

Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017

9:00 am

Ms Laura Burke:

Intensive agriculture comes in under the industrial emissions directive, so that is directly from EU requirements. It is looking at intensive agriculture where there is a large number of chickens or pigs of different types all contained within a specific area. Our role is specific to looking at emissions at the site where the intensive agriculture is happening. For example, the EPA looks at things like ammonia emissions and the potential impacts on water quality in the area. It is concerned with emissions of environmental pollutants.

In the context of regulation, it is ensuring-----