The Centre for Sustainability, IT Sligo is in the process of examining the Environmental Access Principles in Ireland using the Access Initiative research tool to conduct case studies relating to:
Access to Information in
Environmental emergencies, Air and Water quality monitoring, Industrial facility compliance, state of the environment reports and others
Access to Participation in
Policy making (including laws, plans and strategies), regulatory, project level and other environmental decision-making
Access to Justice in relation to
Denial of rights of access to information and participation, environmental harm, non-compliance and others.
Each case study is examined using indicators (research questions)that measure the quality of the relevant legislation, the effort made to imlement it, and the effectiveness of that effort.
The purpose of the research is to identify the gaps, if any, in environmental governance at all levels of responsibility, with a view to enabling targeted capacity building. The research process includes a civil society review panel, the COMHAR plenary, as well as the core research coalition of ITSligo, UCC Law Faculty and the COMHAR Secretariat.
Public participation in environmental decision-making is an essential part of sustainable development, and this project will, over the course of 18 months, give a clear picture of the extent to which Principle 10 of the Rio Summit, 1992, has been incorporated into environmental governance in Ireland, thus enabling informed debate and effective targeted capacity-building measures to be initiated. This will enable the fulfillment of the National Sustainable Development Plan and the National Development Plan as well as international commitments under a range of EU Directives, Agenda 21, the Espoo Convention and the Aarhus Convention.
