{"id":572105,"date":"2026-07-28T13:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/572105\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T13:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:10:12","slug":"environmental-rules-sidelined-when-inconvenient-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/572105\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental rules sidelined when inconvenient \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, \u2013 In reference to the article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2026\/07\/24\/emergency-infrastructure-laws-will-be-at-extremity-of-what-is-constitutionally-permitted\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2026\/07\/24\/emergency-infrastructure-laws-will-be-at-extremity-of-what-is-constitutionally-permitted\/\">Emergency laws will bypass planning process<\/a> (July 25th), the Government plans to change the law so that environmental rules can be skipped for big projects, making it harder for anyone to challenge those decisions in court. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers said: \u201cIt is not for NGOs to use our court system to delay projects. It is a matter for the Government to decide what projects we want to fund and deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Climate Act is not a weapon. It is a law passed by the same Government that now wants to get rid of it when it gets in the way. When citizens use it to challenge a planning decision, they are not causing trouble. They are using a right that Ireland promised to protect when it signed an international agreement called the Aarhus Convention. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A government that removes that check, while the EU is already taking Ireland to court for environmental noncompliance, is not building a better future for the Irish people. It is making sure nobody can stop it from cutting corners. Can the Minister be kindly reminded that a healthy environment is the precondition for a healthy economy? \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">OLIVIA CAFOLLA,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Brittas Bay, <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Co Wicklow. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 In reference to the article Emergency laws will bypass planning process (July 25th), the Government plans&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-572105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}