Ireland should not remove the Dublin Airport passenger cap or permit the building of more data centres without considering their effects on the environment, a United Nations (UN) special rapporteur on environmental rights has said.
Neither should the Government import liquefied natural gas (LNG) or prolong the nitrates derogation, allowing pollution on farmland, without weighing the impact on the climate.
Astrid Puentes Riaño also expressed concern over moves to restrict access to judicial reviews in environmental challenges.
She said a worrying narrative was developing in Government and business circles in which environmental defenders were “stigmatised”.
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Puentes Riaño, a Mexican lawyer and the UN’s special rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, made her remarks after a 10-day fact-finding mission to Ireland.
During her visit, the independent expert who will now compile a report for the UN Human Rights Council, met Government ministers, business and farming groups,
She also met judges, academics, public bodies, youth representatives, environmental defenders and communities concerned about environmental damage in their localities.
She said she asked to visit Microsoft’s data centre campus at Grange Castle, Dublin, but the company denied her access, so she visited the neighbourhood to talk to local people about energy costs instead. Microsoft has been asked for comment.
Puentes Riaño said Ireland had strong environmental and climate legislation, but she was concerned about lack of implementation and enforcement.
She said policies favouring the nitrates derogation, new LNG infrastructure and lifting the Dublin Airport passenger cap “are yet to include adequate, comprehensive and scientifically based assessments of environmental and climate impacts”.
On the growth in the number of data centres, she said: “The cumulative climate impact of new data centres in Ireland must be assessed alongside all recent and proposed developments.
“Their carbon emissions are not limited to the site itself and limit progress toward national carbon budgets.”
She said she had received concerning information during her visit about the use of strategic litigation against public participation, also called Slapps, which are legal actions taken to obstruct or prevent campaigns by environmental defenders and by others.
She said this had a chilling effect, saying there was a “concerning narrative” that environmentalists were a problem, particularly when it came to judicial reviews being taken in the courts.
“This is worrisome because it can be stigmatisation of people who protect the environment, but at the same time it loses the focus on the problem, which is the need to do adequate planning and assessments,” she said.
“If planning is well done, if a licence is well done, there is no reason to do a judicial review.”
Puentes Riaño said rather than adopting “regressive amendments” Ireland should “strengthen enforcement, monitoring capacity and meaningful access to information, public participation and access to justice”.
She said she hoped Ireland would not join the trend globally towards deregulation as that would say “the problem is with the environmental defenders instead of the need to solve the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and toxic pollution”.
The UN expert urged the Government not to sacrifice a healthy environment for economic gain.
“Economic revenue must not come at the expense of protecting the environment and human rights, especially with severe climate change, biodiversity loss and toxic pollution harms already impacting people, as recent floods in Dublin evidence,” she said.
“It’s not one or the other. Instead of thinking whether we have jobs or protecting a forest or whether we have housing or the environment, we need to think about how to sure we have protection for all of this.”
The country’s presidency of the European Union from July to December this year was a chance to show leadership, she said.
“Ireland can and should use its role ... to influence European leadership to protect people and the environment,” Puentes Riaño said.
