Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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45. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will outline the environmental standards and nature protection provisions his Department oversees; the level of activity of enforcement in each case, covering inspections, issuing of notices, and prosecution; and if he plans to step up activity. [46967/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The National Parks and Wildlife Service within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has the primary responsibility for nature conservation, wildlife protection and the presentation and preservation of our National Parks and Nature Reserves.

My Department is responsible for setting the policy and legislative framework within which the key environmental regulators, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and local authorities, discharge their functions with regard to the licensing and permitting of industrial and waste activities as well as pollution from air, noise and littering. These regulatory authorities are independent in the discharge of their functions under legislation, which includes the Circular Economy Act, 2022, Environmental Protection Agency Act, 1992, Waste Management Act 1996, the Litter Pollution Act, 1997 and the Air Pollution Act, 1987.

My Department does not collate statistics on the number of prosecutions undertaken by the above authorities. However, information on the enforcement of environmental legislation is available on the EPA’s website, www.epa.ie, including a dedicated page entitled the EPA's Role in Compliance & Enforcement and a section on the Local Authority Environmental Enforcement Performance Framework.