Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I intend to amend the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 to allow the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to consider applications for integrated pollution control and industrial emissions licences that are subject to the provisions of section 181 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. I addressed this issue by introducing amendment No. 33 on Committee Stage in the Seanad. Amendment No. 33, therefore, provides for the provision whereby the EPA can accept and process licence applications, in line with existing provisions, under section 181(2)(a) and section 181(2A) of the Planning and Development Act 2000 which, currently, it is unable to do.

Section 87 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 sets out the requirements to which the EPA must adhere when assessing an application for a licence or a review of a licence. To accept a licence application for an activity that involves development that requires a grant of permission under the Planning and Development Act 2000, an application for planning permission or a specified approval must have been made or a grant of permission or a specified approval under the Planning and Development Act 2000 must be in place. Section 87 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 does not reference the new provisions of section 181 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 that were inserted in 2021.

Amendments are required to ensure the EPA can examine a licence application and, if that application is successful, grant a licence or revised licence in accordance with new provisions of the Planning and Development Act 2000. The changes are simply to update and align the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 with amendments made to the Planning and Development Act 2000. The intention is to amend the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 so that the application for approval under section 87 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 will also include an application for approval under section 181(2A) of the Planning and Development Act 2000. Similarly, it is intended to amend the definition of "grant of permission" in section 87 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 to include an order signed under section 181(2)(a) of the Planning and Development Act 2000.

Without these amendments, temporary electricity generation proposals which are now being prepared to progress through section 181 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 would not legally be able to apply for and obtain the necessary environmental licence to operate. This amendment is an enabling one and it will allow for the seamless linking up of licence application and process, as envisaged in the 2021 changes made to the Planning and Development Act 2000. The full independence of the EPA in determining whether to grant or refuse licence applications is not affected by this amendment. The EPA remains fully independent in that function and there is no statutory role for a Minister in that regard.

Amendment No. 34 creates a new part in the Electricity Regulation Act 1999 to transpose the requirement in Article 59(1)(b) of the internal market for electricity directive, to give the Commission for Regulation of Utilities the power to ensure compliance by market participants that are not electricity undertakings with their obligations under the directive. These market participants include smaller actors in the electricity market, including citizen energy communities that are not engaged in the activity as their main business or economic activity, and therefore it is not appropriate to subject these actors to the more onerous licensing regime already in existence for electricity undertakings.

This is a significant new development in the Irish electricity regulatory framework that creates a regulatory framework for the participation of new actors in the electricity market and is an essential step in providing new ways for customers and a greater diversity of actors, including citizen energy communities, to participate in the market via electricity activities, including generating and trading electricity, aggregation, demand response and energy storage. It is an important component in building resilience in the electricity market in Ireland and it will help to accelerate the decarbonisation and democratisation of the market. By doing so, this new framework acts upon the European Commission's call to speed up the transposition of the internal market for electricity directive, which is the subject of a letter of formal notice and is designed effectively to allow consumers to participate in energy markets, as set out in the European Commission's recent communication, REPower EU, which sets out the Commission's response to the war in Ukraine.

There is a double urgency to transform Europe's energy system, to end the EU's dependence on Russian fossil fuels, and to tackle the climate crisis. The shift away from fossil fuels towards renewables is part of the circular transition, as provided for in the circular economy strategy.

The strategy is a key addition to the Government's drive to achieve a 51% reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to get on a path to reach net zero emissions by not later than 2050, as per commitments in the programme for Government and the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021. The less we use non-renewable material resources like fossil fuels, the more circular and less resource-intensive the economy becomes.

Amendment No. 3 provides for the immediate commencement of these provisions on the enactment of the Bill. Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 29 to 32, inclusive, provide for a change in Long and Short Titles of the Bill to the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill to take account of these changes.

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