Multi-level governance and policy contestation: Ambiguity and conflict in the implementation of peatland conservation in Ireland

Biodiversity represents one of the most controversial areas of environmental governance. Objectives: Compliance with the EU regulatory framework is contained in the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC) and in the designation of special areas of conservation which has prompted contestation in relationships between public authorities, farmers, and local landholders across all levels of governance. Methodology: Using Matland’s ambiguity-conflict model as a lens to view the implementation experience, the discussion uses official documentation and literature sources to explore Ireland’s compliance with EU biodiversity regulation with reference to peatlands. Results: This article uses the case of Ireland to explore inadequate implementation which led to prolonged legal proceedings culminating in an unfavourable judgement against the Irish state on 29th June 2023. In Case C-444/21 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that Ireland failed to fulfil its obligations under the directive, namely the appropriate designation of a Natura 2000 network of sites for important habitat and a protection regime for them. Central to Irish debates on the habitats directive is the protection of raised bogs which has resulted in considerable conflict, politicisation, and prolonged negotiations between peat-cutters and public authorities at national and local levels. Conclusions: The discussion highlights the difficulties in changing ingrained attitudes and practices for managing nature conservation in privately owned land and in securing collaborative engagement with stakeholders.La biodiversidad representa uno de los ámbitos más controvertidos de la gobernanza medioambiental. Objetivos: El cumplimiento del marco normativo de la UE se recoge en la Directiva sobre hábitats (92/43/CEE) y en la designación de zonas especiales de conservación, lo que ha suscitado contestación en las relaciones entre autoridades públicas, agricultores y terratenientes locales en todos los niveles de gobernanza. Metodología: Utilizando el modelo de ambigüedad-conflicto de Matland como lente para ver la experiencia de aplicación, el debate utiliza documentación oficial y fuentes bibliográficas para explorar el cumplimiento por parte de Irlanda de la normativa de la UE sobre biodiversidad con referencia a las turberas. Resultados: Este artículo utiliza el caso de Irlanda para analizar la aplicación inadecuada que dio lugar a prolongados procedimientos judiciales que culminaron en una sentencia desfavorable contra el Estado irlandés el 29 de junio de 2023. En el asunto C-444/21, el Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea (TJUE) dictaminó que Irlanda había incumplido las obligaciones que le incumbían en virtud de la directiva, a saber, la designación adecuada de una red Natura 2000 de lugares para hábitats importantes y un régimen de protección de los mismos. En el centro de los debates irlandeses sobre la directiva de hábitats está la protección de las turberas elevadas, que ha dado lugar a considerables conflictos, politización y prolongadas negociaciones entre los cortadores de turba y las autoridades públicas a nivel nacional y local. Conclusiones: El debate pone de relieve las dificultades para cambiar actitudes y prácticas arraigadas en la gestión de la conservación de la naturaleza en tierras de propiedad privada y para garantizar el compromiso de colaboración con las partes interesadas

Reticent or robust reform? Charting the development of the central bureaucracy in Ireland

Ireland is no different to other EU/OECD countries whereby ongoing reform is pursued in order to enhance the public sector’s capacity to deal with expanding policy competences, societal change and the demands of an international environment. The current fiscal crisis is the backdrop for a presentation of past and present reform initiatives in Irish public administration. The discussion utilises the conceptual lenses of longitudinal (historical) and normative (sociological) institutional approaches. It charts the development of the state bureaucracy and role of the civil service in four distinct periods - the early decades of independence, fiscal rectitude in the 1980s, the boom of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ and the impact of the fiscal crisis in 2009. Contemporary reform initiatives to promote the strategic capacity of the civil service will be considered in view of the critical importance of public sector reform for the return of economic competitiveness and a restoration of the public finances. It is argued that current reforms have modernised the civil service but have been of a largely technical nature and the ‘path dependency’ of specific institutional characteristics endures

Political-administrative relations: the role of political advisers

Ministerial advisers were first formally appointed as support for individual Irish ministers in 1973, and since then their numbers and tasks have considerably expanded. As ‘temporary civil servants’, they are regarded as both an accepted and criticised feature of executive government. This article focuses on the role of political staff during the period 2011–16 and centres on the period of the economic crisis and its immediate aftermath. It considers themes arising in the international literature that raise questions for the reform of the Irish ‘special adviser’. In order to unpack the specifics of the Irish case, the position and function of special advisers are explored through two theoretical perspectives – public adviser bargains and the core executive. It is argued that the special adviser continues to fit somewhat uneasily within the imperatives of the political-administrative system because they are personally appointed by ministers and their selection is determined by the level and type of support required by individual ministers, as opposed to any preordained skills set

The implementation of e-participation platforms in Ireland: The case of OpenConsult

Putting the ‘e’ factor into governance through e-participation represents attempts to actively involve citizens in deliberating the policy process so that ‘they can raise issues, modify agendas and change government initiatives’ (Davies, 2015). And yet, while e-participation is an important vision of e-governance, it is referred to as a disappointing concept (Bannister and Connolly, 2012) given the gaps between its aspiration of higher rates of citizen engage ment and its actual impact. Using the framework of e-information, e-participation and e-decision-making, the United Nation’s e-participation index indicates that Ireland’s perfor mance in this area is improving, rising from a ranking of 39/193 in 2016 to 29/193 in 2020 (https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/Data/Country-Information/id/81-Ireland). The question arises as to whether and how the public administration gives effect to all stages of this framework with the introduction of e-participation platforms? This chapter discusses emerging e-participation practices in Ireland and argues that, while the introduction of digital platforms in local authorities offers much potential, they remain at a nascent stage of development and are largely grafted onto pre-existing policy-making approaches. The initiative explored is OpenConsult, a platform designed by the research organization CiviQ to support involvement in online consultation processes and make them more transparent. The portal was introduced as a pilot initiative in 2014 and was used in 2020 by a number of Irish public service organizations, including 14 local authorities. The purpose of the discussion is to explore the implementation of OpenConsult and whether the introduction of a technologically enabled engagement approach has led to more meaningful participation with citizens and stakeholders and adaptation within the public administration. Despite its background in a new model of deliberative democracy (Liston et al., 2013), it would appear that the initial e-participation practices in local authorities via OpenConsult have been implemented as a by-product of e-consultation, i.e. making fragmented consultation processes in local government more streamlined and efficient. To date, it is not possible to observe e-participation initiatives which comprehensively affect collaborations both within the government and with non-governmental actors and which link e-participation practices with decision-making to demonstrably influence the policy-making process. The chapter commences by outlining the adoption of a stagist approach to present the spectrum of interactions between government and citizens arising from the expansion of e-government to e-participation and acknowledging the importance of contextual influences and organizational and individual factors in understanding the introduction of e-participation projects in public administration. The discussion moves to review the public administration context in Ireland for e-government/e-governance, which aligns with the Anglo-Saxon tradi tion in promoting public-sector reforms. From the late 1990s, the Irish government began to undertake investment in information and communication technology, and since then, the term e-government has generally been interpreted to straddle both efficiency and effective public administration systems – with more participatory decision processes seemingly tagged on. A background description of CiviQ’s development of OpenConsult is provided to present its mission and goal intentions in the delivery of the platform. The final section seeks to evaluate the platform’s impact by outlining how the platform is utilized as an instrument to improve policy-making processes, how its implementation is influenced by organizational factors within local authority settings and whether this is leading to more innovative and transparent participatory methods

‘Best advice available’ – Challenge and change in developing an optimal policy advisory system in Ireland

The concept of a policy advisory system (PAS) is devised to study the diverse range of actors involved in the policy formulation process from a system level. An optimal PAS should be adaptable, autonomous and transparent, and should deliver substantive and timely advice. This article discusses factors influencing developments in Ireland’s PAS, including the broader trends of politicisation and externalisation. The findings are informed by interviews and a survey circulated to Irish civil servants who perform policy worker tasks and are engaged in providing advice to ministers. The research finds that new structural and institutional arrangements introduced to Ireland’s PAS have created a greater capacity for evidence-based advice in the internal PAS and a more contested space for policy advice. It also highlights that this has not fundamentally disturbed embedded characteristics of the Irish policymaking environment. Political demand pressures from ministers (both personal and electoral) can drive elements of politicisation within the civil service whereby policy advice is weighted or discarded based on ministerial preferences

Rhetoric or reality? Responding to the challenge of sustainable development and new governance patterns in Ireland

The book explores how implementation strategies engage sub-national, regional and local actors in the promotion of sustainable development. Following the obligations incurred at the Rio Earth Summit and the related UNCED process, European states began to produce sustainable development strategies in the 1990s. Implementation efforts are increasingly using 'new' governance arrangements, including: use of public/private partnerships; new policy tools; policy transfer and benchmarking; policy networks and involvement of stakeholder groups; and institutional capacity enhancement. The editors, whom are leading experts on the subject, explore the nature, extent and characteristics of the new governance arrangements that have been put in place to implement sustainable development strategies and initiatives at the sub-national levels. They also examine the approaches that sub-national governments adopted towards the mobilization of 'stakeholders' in these initiatives and what type of non-governmental actors have become involved. In "Pursuit of Sustainable Development" will be of interest to students and researchers of politics, development, geography, planning and social policy

Europeanisation and new patterns of governance in Ireland

To what extent did Europeanisation contribute to Ireland’s transformation from ‘poor relation’ to ‘peer idol’? This book examines how Europeanisation affected Irish policy-making and implementation and how Ireland maximised the policy opportunities arising from membership of the EU while preserving embedded patterns of political behaviour. It focuses on the complex interplay of European, domestic and global factors as the explanation for the changing character of the ‘Celtic Tiger’. The authors demonstrate that, although Europeanisation spurred significant institutional and policy change, domestic forces filtered those consequences while global factors induced further adaptation. By identifying and assessing the adaptational pressures in a range of policy areas the book establishes that, in tandem with the European dimension, domestic features and global developments were key determinants of change and harbingers of new patterns of governance