Simon Coveney TD, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, today launched a public consultation process on how to harness the potential of Ireland’s vast marine resource to tap into a Trillion Euro global market for marine products & services (including seafood, tourism, shipping, oil and gas, renewable ocean energy and new applications for health, medicine and technology). Launching the public consultation ‘Our Ocean Wealth’, Minister Coveney said, “We need to change the way we [...]

Background The Programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists, and rules concerning the practice of lobbying. The Public Service Reform Programme launched by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform on 17 November 2011 contains a commitment to prepare legislation to meet this objective in 2012. Context The Government Reform Unit in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has commenced a review of the international approaches to the [...]

The Programme for Government committed to the creation of Irish Water, a State company that will take over the water investment and maintenance programmes of the 34 county and city councils with the key aim of supervising and accelerating the significant investment needed to upgrade the State’s water and sewerage infrastructure. The Programme also provides for the introduction of a fair funding model to deliver clean and reliable water with the objective of installing water [...]

Framework for Sustainable Development for Ireland The Minister for the Environment. Community and Local Government, Mr Phil Hogan, has launched a new draft Framework for Sustainable Development for Ireland for public consultation. Sustainable development is a continuous, guided process of economic, environmental and social change aimed at promoting wellbeing of citizens now and in the future. While considerable progress has been made in integrating sustainable principles into public policy making in Ireland since the first [...]

****** THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS ON THE NATIONAL PEATLANDS STRATEGY HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO FRIDAY, 20th JANUARY 2012. SEE LATEST NEWS BELOW FOR DETAILS ON THE PUBLIC CONSULTATION REGARDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONAL PEATLANDS STRATEGY *******   The Peatlands Council was established by Government on the 07th April 2011. The Press Release establishing the Council can be viewed below, as well as the Terms of Reference of the Council. The Council was established to respond to [...]

Target group(s) Citizens, experts and practitioners in public authorities, business support organisations including business associations, Chambers of Commerce and other public and private agencies, consultancies, research institutes, small businesses (SMEs), trade unions, NGOs, workers’ and employers’ federations and all other relevant stakeholders involved or interested in the implementation of EU water policy. Period of consultation From 16.11.2011  to 08.02.2012 Objective of the consultation The European Commission wants to gather views and additional information on the [...]

Consultation period From  06/12/2011  to  07/02/2012 Target group(s) Public authorities, Member States authorities, private organisations, industry associations, SMEs, citizens, consumer organisations, trade unions, NGOs, environmental organisations, Consultancies. Objective of the consultation The legislative framework as regards renewable energy is laid down in the Renewable Energy Directive which sets an obligatory target of 20% renewable energy in final energy consumption as well as a 10% target in transport for 2020. Given the long-term perspective of investors it is necessary [...]

Target group(s) Experts and practitioners in public authorities, business support organisations including business associations, Chambers of Commerce and other public and private agencies, consultancies, research institutes, small businesses (SMEs), trade unions, NGOs, workers’ and employers’ federations and all other relevant stakeholders or citizens involved or interested in the implementation of EU water policy. Period of consultation From 06.12.2011 to 28.02.2012 Objective of the consultation As part of its Smart Regulation policy, the European Commission announced [...]