Vol. 397 No. 10
3 Mr. Shatter asked the Minister for the Environment the steps which are to be taken to implement in this country the proposed EC Directive to give a right of access generally to information held by public authorities on environment matters.
The Council of Environment Ministers meeting on 22 March agreed a directive on freedom of access to information on the environment held by public authorities. The directive will come into force on 31 December 1992. In the meantime, a review of the existing national arrangements for public access to information will be carried out and the necessary legislation or regulations to give effect to the directive in Ireland will be introduced in good time.
It is already my policy to improve public access to environmental information. Existing national legislative and administrative systems for infrastructural development and environmental control already provide for a significant degree of public access to environmental information through a system of registers and otherwise. Recent steps towards enhancing that access include a quarterly departmental information bulletin, which provides data on the environment control activities of public authorities and express provision in the relevant regulations for public access to bathing water and salmonoid water quality sampling results.
Public access to environmental information will further improve with the establishment of an environmental information service to be known as ENFO which will be set up on a high street location in Dublin, and which will be the focus of a nationwide information distribution network. It is also intended that the legislation to set up the proposed environmental protection agency will provide for a high degree of public access to any data held by the agency.
