Mr. John Finnegan:

This statement relates to the proposal on the protection of the environment through criminal law. On 15 December last year, the Commission published a legislative proposal to replace an existing 2008 directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law. The Commission evaluated the 2008 directive during 2019 and 2020 and published the results of the evaluation in October 2020.

The Commission found that the 2008 directive had little effect in practice. The number of environmental crime cases investigated and prosecuted was still very low in the Commission's opinion. Penalties were considered to be too lenient to discourage environmental crimes and there was too little co-operation between member states in enforcing these laws. In addition, the Commission noted very little information on investigations was being gathered.

The Commission proposes to address these issues by introducing a new, expanded and reinforced directive, replacing the 2008 directive, on the protection of the environment through criminal law. This new directive will clarify the definitions of existing criminal offences and define nine new environmental offences. These are: placement on the market of products that cause substantial damage to the environment because of the products' use on larger scale; serious breaches of EU chemicals legislation causing substantial damage to the environment or human health; illegal ship recycling; illegal water abstraction; source discharge of polluting substances from ships; illegal trade in timber; serious breaches of rules on the introduction and spread of invasive alien species within the Union; serious circumvention of requirements to do an environmental impact assessment; and illegal production, placing on the market, import, export, use, emission or release of fluorinated greenhouse gases. The proposal would define sanction types and levels for environmental crimes, improve cross-border co-operation and investigation, ensure better data collection and sharing of statistics and improve the effectiveness of national enforcement chains.

Many of the issues raised by this proposal concern criminal law and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is working closely with the Department of Justice as this proposal is examined by the Council of Ministers. The proposal will be considered by the working party on judicial co-operation in criminal matters, COPEN, formation of the Council, which brings together justice officials from member states. Other Departments will also be concerned with sector-specific matters relating to agriculture, water, industry and transport.

In terms of implications for Ireland, we view the next ten years to be critical if we are to address the climate and biodiversity crises which threaten our safe future on this planet. It is imperative that we protect our biodiversity and natural heritage against deliberate acts of systematic destruction of ecosystems, both nationally and globally. Tackling environmental crime is also a key commitment under the EU's Green Deal. This proposal includes robust measures that will define sanction types and levels for environmental crimes, improve cross-border co-operation, ensure better data collection and sharing of statistics and improve the effectiveness of national enforcement chains, including our own.