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FEATURE Environmental Protection Agency
The new plan has defined new effective and efficient national, regional and local governance structures to deliver on the plan. The plan also provides for coordination between these structures to ensure integration of scientific understanding of the problems to be addressed, policy development and on-the- ground delivery. A key change is a move to a more collaborative and evidence-based problem solving approach which seeks to involve local communities in protecting their water resources. There is now much greater clarity about who does what, how things are done, when they are done and at what level. The focus is on working together to achieve improvements in water quality.
Figure 2: Governance and co-ordination structures for implementation of the second-cycle RBMP
The targets set in the latest Plan are based on sound evidence. The plan sets out to continue to ensure effective national measures to address pressures are implemented throughout the entire country. Where such broad-based measures are not sufficient however, the delivery of supporting measures must be prioritised, ensuring the implementation of “the right measures in the right place”.
Figure 3: Water bodies At Risk of not achieving their WFD Objectives.
The second service is a joint dairy industry-Departmental initiative known as the Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advisory Programme. Thirty farm sustainability advisors are working with farmers in the areas for action to
New teams on the ground to implement the work
Local Authorities are leading the implementation of the actions to deliver water quality improvements in the 190 areas for action. It was recognised in the preparation of the plan that there needed to be an additional emphasis on addressing diffuse rural pollution. This has led to two new inter-connected implementation services being established and resourced (90 new staff in total). The first of these is a Local Authority Shared Service – the Local Authority Waters Programme. It is made up of two teams: one to engage with communities in the protection of water, and a second to undertake assessments and follow up with stakeholders to seek solutions to those problems.
(Further information on the Local Authority Waters Programme is available at http:// watersandcommunities.ie/).
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