The Environmental Protection Agency Review Group has suggested a number of recommendations including the introduction of generic legislation to protect whistleblowers and the extension of parliamentary questions to the agency.
The group also suggested reform of the Agency’s licensing process, a wider review of environmental governance, ratification of the Aarhus Convention and the continuation of maintenance of funding for environmental research.
The Review Group, established in 2010, included a number of experts on areas including environmental law, water quality biodiversity and human health.
The group was chaired by John McCarthy who is an assistant secretary in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.
The 58 recommendations were placed under themes such as governance and resources, licensing and monitoring, research and information, relationships and stakeholders and legislative framework.
The introduction of whistleblowers legislation was also discussed on Friday last by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin TD. He reconfirmed the Governments commitment to the introduction of whistleblowers legislation as was contained in the programme for Government.
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