Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)

A public consultation on redesignating 433 rivers, streams and lakes as "heavily modified water bodies", closed last week. If the redesignation goes ahead, it will mean a massive increase in the number of these "heavily modified water bodies" from 33 to 466. All the main rivers in Dublin - the Liffey, the Dodder, the Poddle - as well as iconic rivers like the Boyne, the Corrib and the Shannon, will be included.

The reason the Government is doing this is that heavily modified water bodies do not have to meet EU water quality standards, which require all our rivers, lakes and estuaries to achieve good water quality by 2027. The Government is failing abysmally to achieve those standards; more than half of our rivers, lakes and estuaries are in an unhealthy state. In the late 1980s, we had more than 500 pristine water bodies; there are only 20 today. Rather than taking action to fix that, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is not just moving the goalposts, but demolishing the goalposts.

An Taisce's submission to the public consultation is damning of the redesignation process. It states the consultation "is wholly inadequate from a public participation perspective" because "the Department have manifestly failed to adequately carry out any of the designation tests". It provides a detailed explanation of what the designation tests are supposed to be under EU law and, step by step, shows how the Department has failed to carry them out. The first step is supposed to be to identify possible restoration measures for the rivers. An Taisce finds no evidence the Department bothered to do this and concludes "This is a total failure by the Department to identify the restoration measures required to achieve [good ecological status]." The second step is to examine whether those restoration measures would have significant adverse effects on the specified uses for the rivers, which can include providing drinking water supply, power generation, irrigation, flood protection or land drainage. Here An Taisce finds "Given that there has been no analysis of what restoration measures would be required... it [is] impossible for the Department to adequately answer this question." Did that stop the Department? No. It went ahead and inputted the word "Yes" to an Excel spreadsheet 433 times, apparently on the say-so of the specified use owners. Those specified use owners are the Department and the OPW. I have the Excel spreadsheet here just saying "Yes" 433 times. It is the definition of a box-ticking exercise.

There is a second column with "Yes" written 433 times in answer to the question, "Will the body fail good ecological status?" That lets the cat out of the bag. It is patently obvious that the Government is doing this to wriggle out of its obligations to bring water bodies up to good ecological status by 2027 and to hell with the cost to the environment and the damage to biodiversity. Is the Minister of State content to preside over a further decline of our rivers and lakes? Is he content to not even try to restore them and instead to throw in the towel and redesignate them as heavily modified in order that the Government is not under any pressure to improve them?

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