On everything from waste management to the bungalow blitz, the Government has avoided making hard choices, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
Fudge was very much on the menu at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg last September. But then, we've become experts at fudging environmental issues here at home - especially during 2002, when it finally hit us that the Celtic Tiger had stopped roaring.
Whether it's waste management, green taxes, roads versus railways, archaeological and habitat protection, strategic planning, housing in the countryside or achieving social integration, our politicians have consistently plumped for easy options, either to satisfy powerful lobbies or to avoid upsetting others.
The National Spatial Strategy is one such piece of fudge. None of its 18 "gateways" and "hubs" has any chance of developing a critical mass to compete with Dublin, simply because there are too many of them. Neither will it do anything to curtail the spread of urban-generated housing in rural areas.
Now running at 36 per cent of the total output of new housing on an annual basis, this rampant suburbanisation of the countryside is set to continue because there is no political will to put a brake on it. Indeed, the issue is so fudged in the spatial strategy that its text might have been penned by Eamon Ó Cuiv, the champion of dispersed housing.
In doing so, the Government is rowing back from a national strategy for sustainable development, published in 1997, which said that "in general, there must be a presumption against urban-generated 'one-off' rural housing" because of its unsustainability in terms of transport, the provision of public services and threat to groundwater supplies.
What is fuelling the sprawl of bungalows, of course, is the sale of sites. At a time when agriculture is depressed, this has become a huge earner, netting farmers a total of €800 million a year, according to one reliable estimate. That kind of money has also put the issue beyond rational debate and into the realm of hysteria, particularly in the west.
An Taisce has been villified for having the temerity to stand against the tide of "one-off" houses in scenic rural areas, especially when its appeals against planning decisions by pro-development local authorities are upheld by An Bord Pleanála. Yet these cases represent a tiny fraction of the number of approvals issued annually.
Though the principal goal of the 2000 Planning Act is to secure "proper planning and sustainable development", this message has not been taken on board by local councillors. In several counties, they are busily re-writing plans to make it easier for constituents to get planning permission for new houses and make money from the sale of sites.
The continuing sprawl of Dublin was highlighted by preliminary figures from last April's census showing substantial population increases in Meath, Kildare and Wicklow and, more worryingly, in some of the outer Leinster counties which have been drawn into the capital's expanding commuter belt. This trend is as unsustainable as the "bungalow blitz".
Meanwhile, the Government abandoned the goal of achieving more social integration by amending Part V of the 2000 Planning Act. No longer would developers be required to provide up to 20 per cent social and affordable housing on the same site as a private housing scheme; they would be allowed to build it somewhere else or pay money in kind.
Yet within days of Environment Minister Martin Cullen announcing this shameless climbdown, his Minister of State for Housing, Noel Ahern, launched the final phase of Clarion Quay, in Dublin's Docklands, where owner-occupiers and investors paid high prices to buy into a scheme that specifically included 20 per cent "social and affordable" housing.
Cullen has been hot on the issue of Sellafield, taking Irish media representatives out to The Hague on board the Government jet for the opening day of Ireland's legal action against Britain under the OSPAR Convention. But if one of the aims is to influence British public opinion, it is curious that no effort was made to ensure a British media presence.
Sellafield has become a convenient whipping boy for Irish politicians; it is certainly a softer target than dealing with serious environmental problems here at home. But at least Cullen has made it clear that he is prepared to deal firmly with the thorny issue of waste management, which became too hot for local councillors to handle.
Furious rows continue about the location of landfill sites, municipal waste incinerators and even recycling facilities. But despite the discovery of yet another illegal dump in Co Wicklow, some progress is being made to boost Ireland's previously abysmal record in recycling a higher proportion of the inevitable detritus of our consumer society.
The latest "state of the environment" report published in July by the Environmental Protection Agency showed that household and commercial waste in Ireland had increased by more than 60 per cent in five years, with a volume equivalent to 600 kilos for every man, woman and child in the State.
Hence the need to deliver essential infrastructure.
The report also warned that Ireland will have to make significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions over this decade if it is to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. With emissions already three times higher than the allowable 13 per cent increase, the State could face huge penalties for failing to take action.
Cullen, who breezed into the Custom House last June, has been nothing if not explicit about the likely extent of the bill for breaching the Kyoto Protocol after it is ratified next year. By 2010, under a "business-as-usual" scenario, the cost to Ireland for failing to comply with its obligations could amount to a staggering €1.3 billion per year.
However, despite a commitment in the 1997 Sustainable Development Strategy that a range of "green taxation" measures would be introduced, starting with the 1998 Budget, the Government has declined to bite the bullet on this issue, as Cullen publicly urged his colleagues to do. Now it has been long-fingered to the 2004 Budget.
Further evidence of the absence of joined-up thinking was provided by Charlie McCreevy's removal of certain tax reliefs for renewable energy schemes, such as wind farms, and an inexplicable 22 per cent cut in the allocation for forestry in 2003 - despite its importance as a "carbon sink" to absorb some of our burgeoning emissions of carbon dioxide.
Anyone who doubts that climate change is not a real threat will have been jolted by the floods in November when more than a month's rain fell in just two days. This was exactly the type of "extreme weather event" scientists on the UN's Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change had warned would happen with increasing frequency.
But though traffic is now the fastest-growing contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, the Government managed to find an extra €209 million for the national roads programme. The cost of this programme, which includes five inter-urban motorways all leading to Dublin, has spiralled out of control and could reach €22 billion unless there is a review.
By comparison, public transport is in the ha'penny place. Total investment in mainline railways under the National Development Plan amounts to €1.25 billion, of which €117 million is for new inter-city rail carriages. But the Limerick Junction-Rosslare line is threatened with closure while the western rail corridor was severed on November 11th.
The Minister for the Environment, who represents Waterford, suggested that the Rosslare line should be closed if it is not viable, with the freight traffic it carries transferred to roads. "We simply don't have the resources to develop everything and choices must be made", he told a special meeting of Waterford City Council last month.
According to a report in the Munster Express, Cullen suggested that the viability of the city's proposed western bypass and new bridge over the River Suir could hang on the termination of the Rosslare line. "To be viable, the bypass will need a critical mass of traffic - of every kind", he said. More juggernauts on the roads, in other words.
That would be the inevitable outcome of a withdrawal by Iarnród Éireann from rail freight, which seemed a distinct possibility after the closure of IFI's fertiliser plants in Arklow and Cork. A final decision on its fate - and on the future of the State's railways in general - hinges on a strategic rail review due to be published in the New Year.
Dublin's two Luas light rail lines (Tallaght and Sandyford) won't open for service until 2004 - a full year behind schedule - for reasons that have never been adequately explained by the Railway Procurement Agency. Decisions are still awaited from the Minister for Transport, Seamus Brennan, on an airport rail link and the much-vaunted metro system.
Brennan deservedly won kudos for pressing ahead with the introduction of penalty points for speeding. But the "compromise" he sanctioned for the route of the South Eastern Motorway - final leg of Dublin's M50 - will not save the remains of Carrickmines Castle, which became the cause célèbre of environmental battles in 2002.
The fate of the London plane trees in O'Connell Street also touched a nerve, even though it should have been evident to anyone who read Dublin City Council's 1998 integrated area plan for "Ireland's main street" that they were to be replaced. The trees will certainly be dwarfed when "The Spike" is finally erected, three years behind schedule.
But at least sense has prevailed on the national stadium issue. After the penny had finally dropped about the unquantifiable cost of hugely overblown plans for Sports Campus Ireland at Abbotstown, the Government now seems to accept that redeveloping Lansdowne Road is the most cost-effective and sensible solution. We could even call it the "Bertie Bowl".