Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Bill. At this point, we are looking at it on a high level. As we go through the remainder of the process, a lot of the details will be discussed and elements of it will, I hope, be improved.

A few points strike me in the first instance. In principle, I absolutely welcome statutory limits and timelines. What will be really important is what they mean in practice. We do not want to see any watering down of environmental protections as a result of those timelines. That will be key but, in principle, statutory time limits are welcome and will give agencies a target to work towards and a timeframe within which to stay. The question then is what happens if those deadlines are missed. What will be the impact for the licences? Will they be left in limbo or is it a matter for the EPA to deal with? That is an issue we need to look into in greater detail.

The question was asked as to what the exceptional circumstances will be. We must be sure to be very clear about that. The language cannot be vague or open to interpretation. It must be set down clearly. We do not want a situation where there is not full environmental scrutiny of any of these proposals. That would be a slippery slope in the wrong direction.

I am making these points in the context of our poor environmental record to date. The latest EU report - they seem to be coming out every week - is once again scathing of our record on environmental protection. That record is not just a matter for this Government or the previous Government but all the governments before them. We have never been good at protecting our country's environment and, unfortunately, that is still the case.

On lower-risk activities, while standardisation is helpful, we cannot have it become the back door to deregulation. What is the extent of that and what it will mean? We will need transparency, site-specific assessments and public input. We cannot have a situation where public participation is merely a box-ticking exercise. The Aarhus Convention was mentioned earlier in this regard. Public participation must be meaningful. It is really important that any of these proposed changes do not undermine the ability of the public to engage in environmental processes and planning.

Those are the high-level issues. The one point I would emphasise to the Minister is that if he is bringing in these changes, he needs to bring in additional resourcing and funding for the EPA. None of this will work if the agency is under-resourced when it comes to implementing the changes.

The other point, and I will go into it in more detail and give examples, is that we have sufficient legislation to deal with a lot of the environmental issues that land on the desks of the different agencies. However, our record on enforcement is really poor. The climate committee is meeting right now to discuss the River Blackwater fish kill, with representatives of a number of agencies in attendance, as well as some anglers. I am sure the Minister is well aware that more than 42,000 fish were found dead in the river and that the agencies cannot identify a reason for it. That is the discussion the committee will have, including looking at the processes that were followed.

An issue that came up during the examination of the catchment on that river system was in regard to North Cork Creameries, NCC. While the EPA has said it cannot see any causal link between the activities of the creamery and the fish kill, its final report on its investigations has absolutely incredible detail on the record of that entity. It states: "NCC is a site with a history of failure to consistently achieve compliance with its licence discharge conditions and was already the subject of significant enforcement activity by EPA prior to the incident..." The EPA, it is stated, continues to "monitor the licensed site closely". Recent non-compliances were detected when it was investigating the fish kill, with those instances taking place from June to August. The EPA describes them as "serious and entirely unacceptable".

Later, the report goes into more detail about the creamery. LEAP is the EPA's public online system, which people can use to see the different licences and their compliance rate and any compliance issues.

When you go onto that and you search for North Cork Creameries, NCC, 134 instances of non-compliance come up. That is just since 2020. The EPA has put North Cork Creameries onto the national priority site system. That means the EPA has identified this entity and prioritised it for enforcement based on its environmental performance. The EPA uses this site to target the efforts at the poorest performing sites. Essentially, the EPA has said North Cork Creameries is one of the poorest performing sites because of the list of non-compliance and that it is therefore going to prioritise it to make sure that it remains within its licence conditions. North Cork Creameries was on the EPA's national priority sites list in quarter 3 of 2021, quarters 2, 3 and 4 of 2022 and throughout 2023 and 2024. It was not on the list in quarters 1 and 2 of 2025 because the EPA said there had been a bit of improvement, but following what has happened in recent weeks it expects that it will go back onto it again.

Since the NCC was granted its licence as a creamery, the EPA has carried out 46 inspections, with samples taken on 23 of the site visits. I would imagine the EPA must spend a huge amount of time in that creamery. I cannot understand why we are still discussing the creamery, which has consistently not been complying with its licence. At what stage will the licence be removed for non-compliance?

I understand there are lots of jobs at risk, and it is not the case that anybody would want the creamery shut down, but it must operate within the conditions of its licence. However, it is clear that it has not, and that has been the case for a number of years.

This is a very clear example of an entity that has gone through the EPA process, that has an EPA licence and where the EPA does inspections. The EPA has enforcement measures it can apply and yet the creamery is still operating and polluting the river. Even though the EPA has said it cannot find any real link between the creamery and the fish kill, the levels of discharge by the NCC into the site were incredibly high. That just goes to show that we can try to improve the system by having timelines and modify and make changes to the system, but the EPA has to enforce the legislation that is in place and that it needs to be resourced to do that. Otherwise, it will all go to waste.

Our history and track record when it comes to protecting rivers is not acceptable. This is not just about the creamery. The river is really important to the local area from a recreation perspective and from the perspective of small businesses. There are a lot of anglers and angling businesses on the river. There is also the tourism perspective and the broader conditions relating to the environment, biodiversity and nature that need to be protected.

I wanted to use that as an example to show that we have not got this right. There are many problems with how the system is being applied. I know that is outside the scope of the Bill but it has to feature. I hope we will have a big discussion on the Blackwater and see what the process is, but this is something that absolutely needs to be addressed. We cannot continue as we are.

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