The plea by Seán O’Driscoll, the chair of the Government’s infrastructure taskforce, to roll back on what he called “ gold-plated” environmental regulation looks, on the face of it, to be part of the debate between business and environmentalists which breaks out regularly across the developed world. Donald Trump’s agenda has dealt a blow to the environmental movement worldwide, with many big companies pulling back on green practices and a drive in the US to scrap regulations.
But there is another way of looking at the issue, based more on common sense than the green culture wars. Ireland needs proper environmental regulation and is paying the price for not having it in place for many years. Too many habitats have been damaged or destroyed.
However, regulation needs to be proportionate and to achieve its goal in an efficient way. Procedure for its own sake has no point: it has to achieve a purpose. And while there is no doubt that environmental regulation has played an important and vital role, there has been increased focus internationally on the costs of what is called “procedural fetish” – the need to produce endless studies and documents and jump multiple hurdles before a project can proceed. This imposes costs, without in many cases leading to any environmental improvement.
In Ireland, Trinity College Dublin economist Barra Roantree has pointed to the multiple phases of consultation and permission-seeking which the Bus Connects project in Dublin has had to go through. This delayed progress on a vital public transport project which will improve the lives of commuters and cut carbon emissions. Improvements to a stretch of cycle path along the Royal Canal, meanwhile, were judged as requiring a major environmental assessment,
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The debate on this needs to step back from the traditional divisions and ask the simple question: how do we protect the environment and also get things done? There will be some trade-offs, for sure, which will annoy one side of the debate or the other. But a lot of this is just common sense.
