Environmental Protection Agency Releases ‘2024 State of the Environment Report’

The Environmental Protection Agency have released a report titled ‘2024 State of the Environment’ This report highlights the minimum effort attitude Ireland has displayed in terms of taking steps to protect the environment. The report demonstrates the country’s reliance on landfill sites and that although some steps have been taken to decrease the use of landfills to dispose of waste, too much waste is still being created and exported. In addition to this the report outlines the issues facing Ireland in relation to air quality and water pollutants. The measures taken to reduce air pollution have not been enough as studies have shown that even small amounts of air pollutants can be harmful to the environment and human health. Water pollution also needs to be addressed in a way that deals with not just rivers and lakes but overall water pollution levels in this country.  

The report states that to make more beneficial change for the future Ireland needs to abandon it’s ‘get by’ attitude. Multiple issues must be addressed, and a shared vision coupled with a national policy statement needs to be implemented to stop the degradation of our environment. Five key areas have been pinpointed for the most impactful measures to be brought in including the strict implementation of existing environmental schemes, a national policy position on the environment, transformation of energy, transport, food and industrial sectors, increased investment in water, energy, transport and waste management infrastructure and to highlight the link between the state of our environment and our health.  

Speaking about the launch of the report, Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency, Laura Burke said: “We have made immense progress as a nation. Our membership of the EU helped us achieve that.   We now look back to a time when we had serious industrial pollution of our rivers, when we relied on over a hundred municipal dumps, when we burned smoky fuel in our cities – and we can never go back to that. 

“But where we are right now,” Ms. Burke added, “while it is better, is nowhere near good enough.  We are always playing catch-up. We now have virtually no seriously polluted rivers, but we have hardly any pristine ones left, either.  We now recycle more, but produce more waste than ever and export much of it.  We are taking positive actions across multiple fronts, but they are not keeping pace with the growing pressures, and our environment is being squeezed.  Increments now are not best use of scarce time and resources: We need to make a fundamental shift.” “We know what we have to do” She added.  “Our energy, transport, food and industrial sectors are the core of where this transformation can, must, and will happen. We must harness all of our resources to meet this challenge.  Not acting now only postpones inevitable change that will be much more difficult, and more costly, later on.”