Following a European Court of Justice ruling in relation to the EIA Directive, changes to Ireland’s system of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) are proposed. The proposed changed requirements will apply to agricultural activities such as the re-structuring of fields and removal of boundaries which will require consent from the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Proposed thresholds are outlined in more detail in this article.
The European Court of Justice ruled in November 2008 in respect of Case C-66/06, which related to the implementation of Directive 85/337/EEC on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (generally known as the EIA Directive), that Ireland's system of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) screening for certain categories of agriculture and aquaculture related projects was over-reliant on size thresholds and did not take other relevant criteria (such as the cumulative impacts of development, the location of the development or activity relative to sensitive sites etc.) into account.
Following intensive discussions with the European Commission, the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine are introducing new regulations - the Planning and Development (Amendment) (No.2) Regulations 2011 and the European Communities (Agricultural Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2011 - to give effect to these new provisions and procedures, which are now considered to be compliant with the principles and requirements of the EIA Directive.
The responsibility for most of the activities covered by the judgement is being transferred to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food under a new separate consent system. One element of judgement that is being retained within the planning system is on-farm development activity that impacts on wetlands, due to their high sensitivity. The new regulations propose an exempted development threshold (i.e. the threshold above which a planning permission and screening for EIA is required) of 0.1 hectare, thus allowing minor works such as access works to take place on wetlands without having to seek planning permission. The new Department of Agriculture Regulations cover the following categories:
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Restructuring of farm holdings;
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Use of uncultivated land or semi-natural areas for intensive agriculture;
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Land drainage works on lands used for agriculture, excluding the drainage and reclamation of wetlands
The Regulations also propose a new system of screening, to be undertaken by the Department of Agriculture, for environmental impact above certain thresholds for different types of agricultural activity, and the requirement for mandatory EIA to be carried out on such projects at a higher level. The table below sets out the new thresholds:
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Category of activity
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Threshold for EIA screening
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Threshold for consent and mandatory EIA
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Re-structuring of rural land holdings
Length of field boundary to be removed
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500 metres
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4 kilometres
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Re-contouring (within farm-holding)
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2 hectares
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5 hectares
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Area of lands to be restructured by removal of field boundaries
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5 hectares
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50 hectares
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Commencing to use uncultivated land or semi-natural areas for intensive agriculture
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5 hectares
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50 hectares
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Land drainage works on lands used for agriculture (excluding drainage or reclamation of wetlands)
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15 hectares
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50 hectares
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Additional information available at the following link: http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/press/pressreleases/2011/september/title,57866,en.html