Following a Government decision to finally ratify the Aarhus Convention on behalf of the State, the Green Party is calling on the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to initiate a public awareness campaign to highlight the benefits to communities of the Convention.

The Party claims that the Aarhus Convention has wide-ranging implications for the public in accessing information to do with environmental issues that affect them, in how people's views are heard in decision making and, most importantly, in having resources made available to access justice if a public or private body fails to adhere to the Convention's principles or environmental law.

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"While welcoming the Government's decision to ratify Aarhus, I think it is important now that Minister Hogan would make the citizens aware of its existence and the positive impact it could have for communities around the country who may be faced with planning or environmental threats to their quality of life," said the Green Party Environment Spokesperson Cllr. Malcolm Noonan.

"Furthermore, I have no doubt that had Aarhus been ratified fourteen years ago when we first signed up to it, the power imbalance that led to the Corrib controversy would not have existed and communities up and down the country would have had the ability to fight against environmental and planning injustices on a level playing field with those who had the financial and technical expertise to rebut community concerns.

"The Green Party is concerned that ratification of the Aarhus Convention will go largely unnoticed, that Minister Hogan is duty bound to inform the public as to its implications and that the Convention should be referenced in all Local Authority City and County Development Plans so that the transparency and equity espoused in the Aarhus Convention is not just transposed into Irish Law but embraced in spirit by the state," concluded Cllr. Noonan.

(CD)