Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Question 643: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the progress which has been made within the past year to ratify the Aarhus Convention and incorporate same into Irish law. [34056/05]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland signed the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters on 25 June 1998. Progress towards ratification of the convention is closely aligned with work at EU level. To date, the European Union has adopted two directives as part of the ratification process for the convention. These deal with public access to environmental information, 2003/4/EC, and public participation in certain environmental decision-making procedures, 2003/35/EC. Ratification of the convention will take place after these directives have been transposed into Irish law.

Work is continuing in my Department with regard to the transposition of these two directives and will be completed as soon as possible. When the above work on transposition is completed, the instrument of ratification of the Aarhus Convention will be submitted to Government and laid before the Dáil.