Laura Burke, not racing to prosecute business



AURA Burke has been Director General

of the Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) since , before which she

served as a Director of the Agency for

seven years in the Oﬃce of Communications and

then the Oﬃce of Corporate Services and Climate,

Licensing and Resource Use.

Before joining the EPA, Burke was project and

operations manager for Indaver Ireland, including

for incinerators in Meath, Cork and Dublin Port.

The Green Party considered this involvement

disqualiﬁed her from even taking up a position

in the EPA. Like her predecessor as head of the

EPA, Mary Kelly who now leads An Bord Pleanála,

she was involved, before moving to the EPA, in

environmental policy with the can-do employers’

representative group, IBEC.

Burke was born in Dublin in the early s

and attended St Joseph’s of Cluny Girls school

in Killiney before going to the largely male St

Conleth’s College in Ballsbridge. She studied

chemical engineering in UCD, graduating with

a : honours degree and working for a while in

her mother’s chemist’s in Dun Laoghaire. She took

an MSc in Management Practice from Trinity in

.

The EPA was established in  ‘to protect

and improve the environment’ and deals with

air and water, climate change, waste-licensing,

hazardous waste, sewage eﬄuents and geneti-

cally-modiﬁed organisms. It monitors a range

of indicators including air, water and CO emis-

sions. It issues Integrated Pollution Prevention

and Control Licences for pollutant activites which

deploy best available techniques to eliminate or

limit releases to the environment, and minimise

eﬀects on the environment.

In the USA the Federal EPA has interpreted its

limited remit as broadly as possible, for example

extending its role in regulating air quality under

the Clean Air Act to regulating greenhouse gases

– in the teeth of Presidential opposition, and

moving in, as a Federal body, to

traditional State areas of planning

and transport, under the pretext of

concern for air and water, the sta-

ples of any EPA. In Ireland, however,

EPA leaders are cautious and are

recruited from the ranks of those

who will not extend the remit.

Within ﬁve months of Burke’s

appointment as Director General,

she gave an interview to the Irish

Times, in which she stated that the

EPA “should not be racing” to pros-

ecute business for not complying with

environmental licences and regulations. She said

she wanted to reposition the agency to support

economic growth and move away from the percep-

tion that it was purely an environmental watchdog

or policeman. This apparently ran counter to the

perspective of a Departmental Review instigated

by John Gormley as Minister for the Environment

which was broadly laudatory of the agency but

noted concern among some stakeholders at the

“apparently relatively low” level of prosecutions

being taken and even recommended instigation

of an environmental court.

Burke said she was not trying to subvert or

dilute the agency’s role as a regulator but that

Irish businesses were “broadly compliant” and

the agency had an important part to play in the

State’s economic recovery.

“We now need more than ever to highlight the

importance of the environment, not just for its

own sake, but also the importance of the environ-

ment to the economy and to economic recovery”,

she adumbrated, suggesting her own personal

views.

Her “not be racing” comment has shocked

environmental campaigners as it is perceived

to give a public signal to Companies, especially

those which are considering investing here, about

the reality of an Ireland which out of one side of its

mouth still claims to be green. The message, one

which admittedly is often countered by worthy

rhetoric, seems to be that whether their enter-

prise is fracking, incineration, industry or oil and

gas explorations an IPPC licence, granted by the

EPA can be breached in today’s reeling Emerald

Isle. Communities will have to make do.

But EPA deference is not new. A 

report published by Professor

Jacqueline McGlade of the European

Environmental Agency named seven

industries in Ireland, led by elec-

tricity-generation as damaging the

environment and human health, with

a cost of over a billion euros in dam-

age for the year  alone.

In September  Labour TD,

Ciaran Lynch, who is chairman of

the joint Oireachtas environment

committee, accused Minister, Phil

Hogan, of not engaging the commit-

tee before the appointment. He wrote: “A

committee cannot refuse an appointment, but

it can make a recommendation or judgment call

if it has concerns about an individual’s attitudes,

background, etc”.

The Irish Environment Forum has sought, to

have Burke removed because of her comments

and background, compromised by her involve-

ment in industry. To date Minister Hogan has

failed to answer any of our requests, though it

is unusually diﬃcult for him to hide behind the

EPA Act, when section  () states clearly “the

Director General may be removed from oﬃce if

his removal appears to the Government to be nec-

essary or desirable for the eﬀective performances

by the Agency of its function”.

In the EPA’s Review of , Burke comments

“We are fortunate in Ireland that our environment

remains generally in good condition”. For many

environmentalists, particularly against a back-

ground of the pristine environment handed to the

current generation, that is not just not enough; it

is not even true.

Pat Geoghegan is founder of the Irish Environmental

Forum

pat geoghegan

environment

Laura Burke, not racing to

prosecute business

Irish Environmental Forum has sought resignation for comments and industry

background

A Departmental review was

laudatory of the agency

but noted concern at the

“relatively low” level of

prosecutions being taken

and even recommended

instigation of an

environmental court

Laura Burke