The EEA reports that the overall state of Ireland’s environment is “very poor”.
Every five years an update report on the state of Europe’s environment is compiled by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The report is a synthesis of country profiles detailing conditions in each of the 27 European Union member states and 11 neighbouring countries.
With regard to biodiversity the 2025 report on Ireland states that biodiversity “remains under threat and the state of nature is very poor”. Both EU and global targets aim for 30% of habitats on both land and at sea to be protected by 2030. The reports conclude that in Ireland that “target/objective will not be reached following the historical trend”.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) serve as one example of our poor historical trend. In 2022 draft legislation was promised with the hope that it would pass speedily through both houses of the Oireachtas during 2023. However, the draft Bill was never published. On 10 June 2025, Taoiseach Micheál Martin was reported in the press as stating in his address the previous day to the UN Oceans Conference in Nice that Ireland was “moving to protect 30 per cent of its marine area by 2030”. The following month the long-awaited Marine Protected Areas Bill was abandoned by government in favour of starting again with an alternative approach.
Present claims by government that 10 per cent of Ireland’s marine area are marine protected areas are bizarre as we have no legislation in place and any so-called ‘protection’ is purely a paper exercise with no meaningful action being taken on the ground. The situation is wholly inadequate and our natural heritage continues to be whittled away.
The reports summarise the present state of our wildlife bleakly: “The assessment of nature is very poor, with 85% of Ireland’s protected habitats and almost one third of protected species of flora and fauna having an unfavourable status. Over half of native plant species are in decline and more than 50 bird species are of high conservation concern. Significant measures are needed to address declines.”
The assessment of water quality is equally bleak: “The water quality assessment is poor.” Yet the report notes: “At the same time, the nation and economy have prospered. However, this success has been heavily dependent on environmental resources.” In the last progress report, Ireland ranked bottom among EU member states for expenditure on environmental protection. The EU average was 2.2 per cent of GDP, but Ireland’s expenditure was just 0.9 per cent.