Time to get rid of 'behind closed doors' approach
MORE than 50 different reports – going as far back as 1962 – have recommended an independent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
All the Assembly parties bar one support an independent EPA; the High Court thinks we need one; everyone else in the UK and Ireland has one; the government’s own expert review panel recommended one; and given the state of Northern Ireland’s environment, we badly need one.
What’s not to like about an independent environmental protection agency?
And why all this support, along with that of the CBI, the Consumer Council, a clutch of senior business leaders, the former Chief Planning Appeals Commissioner, the Quarry Products Association, rural groups, lawyers and Ulster’s anglers?
What everyone wants is for environmental regulation to be at arms length from government so that the interests of the environment come before those of ministers; so business can have the certainty it needs to operate rather than being at the mercy of the electoral cycle; so that the risk of European legal action on issues like waste and sewage is substantially reduced; so that the costs represent value for money; and so that we can shake off our reputation as a region that plays fast and loose with the state of its environment.
The Assembly is not proud of Northern Ireland’s environmental performance.
Now is the opportunity to change that by rejecting the failed “behind closed doors” approach of the past in favour of modern, open and competent government.
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Weather for Belfast
Monday 13 February 2012
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