Environment Minister Arlene Foster faces the toughest test of her tenure so far following the news that an official complaint against her and the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland (DoE NI) is due to be lodged at the European Commission this month.
The complaint will be raised by Friends of the Earth (FoE) and cites Minister Foster's failure to create an Independent Environmental Protection Agency in Northern Ireland as a breach of the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive 2001/42/EC. The move follows a recent judgement in Belfast's High Court which ruled that the DoE NI had been consulting with itself on important planning issues rather than seeking the advice of an independent authority, as required by law.
John Woods, Northern Ireland Director of FoE said, "We had hoped the era of Northern Ireland being dragged through the European legal process was drawing to a close. Regrettably the Minister's reluctance to create the kind of independent environmental protection body that exists in the rest of the UK and Ireland means we had no choice but to lodge this complaint. The case for a new agency has been clearly made by the Government's own independent review panel. It is time for the Minister to stop dragging her feet and live up to her title of Minister of the Environment."
