Vincent P Martin (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday a new planning and environmental court was officially launched in a bid to speed up complex judicial review cases. A UN worldwide report, commissioned in 2016, concerning the adjudication of environmental disputes, concluded that the establishment of environmental courts and tribunals is a key step in improving the adjudication of environmental disputes. The Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss held that the State has comprehensively failed to adequately fund, implement and, most importantly, enforce existing national legislation and policies and EU biodiversity laws and directives related to biodiversity, and that this has got to change.

The judge tasked with the serious responsibility of managing this new division of the High Court, Mr. Justice Richard Humphreys, said yesterday, "The document-heavy, technicality-heavy and EU-law heavy nature of Planning and Environmental cases is such that a significant number of them are relatively anomalous in a regular list and present in such a context as relatively time-consuming and problematic. The new specialised court will be better placed to keep track of developments in this complex area than would arise if such cases were dealt with in a general list." Clíona Kimber SC, head of the climate bar, said yesterday that she hoped the new court will be the start of a new approach to the enforcement of existing national legislation and that this new court, launched yesterday, will be the start of meeting "the defining challenge of our age", which is climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.

The specialised court will enable the development of a high level of judicial expertise, with expert judges. Mr. Justice Humphreys, Mr. Justice Holland and Ms Justice Emily Farrell are the first three. I hope the resources will be doubled in due course, in the lifetime of this Government. This was an issue that was a matter of keen interest for the Green Party in the negotiated and agreed programme for Government. We were also keen to ensure that it would be implemented during the lifetime of this Government. This is a positive day for the environment. It is a good news story. I acknowledge the role of the Minister for Justice and the two other parties in this Government that made it possible.