Today, Minister Noonan, along with his Departmental colleague, Minister Darragh O’Brien, published the draft River Basin Management Plan for Ireland 2022-2027 for public consultation. The Ministers now invite submissions, observations, and comments on the proposed plan.
A key commitment in the Programme for Government, launching a new strengthened River Basin Management Plan will help Ireland protect, improve, and sustainably manage our water environment to 2027. Achieving good water quality in our estuaries, lakes, rivers, and seas is essential for protecting Ireland’s drinking water sources, environment, and people’s quality of life. The plan is produced in implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD).
Why are we launching a Public Consultation?
Ireland is currently in the latter stages of preparing the next River Basin Management Plan (RBMP) for Ireland. The Plan is required under the Water Framework Directive for the period 2022-2027.
These plans, amongst other requirements, set out the environmental improvements to be delivered during a river basin planning cycle. The plans contain water quality objectives and a programme of measures to achieve those objectives.
Building on earlier consultation phases, the purpose of this consultation is to gather your views on what should be in the final plan. We need all sectors to respond, to ensure the third-cycle plan is as good as possible.
By responding, you will be helping to shape the overall management of Ireland’s water environment. The information gathered will help us prepare for the next cycle of River Basin Management Plans. The finalised plan is due to be published in 2022.
How you can get involved
When replying to this consultation, it would assist us if you could respond by completing a short online survey . This will allow you to make your comments more effectively, while helping us to gather and summarise responses quickly and accurately.
Please note: The survey will not operate correctly using Internet Explorer. To participate in the survey you should access the link using a different browser .
However, if you would like to respond in another way, a consultation response template can be downloaded from the link in the documents section of this web page. Completed templates should be emailed to rbmp@housing.gov.ie
Alternatively, you can provide a response in your preferred format by post to:
RBMP Consultation
Water Advisory Unit
Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Custom House
Dublin 1
D01 W6X0
Or by email to:rbmp@housing.gov.ie
You do not have to respond to every question in the consultation. If you have a specific area of interest, you are free to respond just on that topic.
The consultation period closes on Thursday, 31 March 2022.
Receipt of submissions will be acknowledged but it will not be possible to issue individual responses.
Further info: gov.ie - Public Consultation on the draft River Basin Management Plan for Ireland 2022-2027 (www.gov.ie)
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