The IPPC licence takes account of the effect the activity has on the environment as a whole. In granting an IPPC licence to an activity the EPA must be satisfied that the best available technology not entailing excessive costs (BATNEEC) will be used to prevent pollution. Industry can avail of the BATNEEC notes, that the Agency has prepared, to identify the technologies that can be used to eliminate, minimise, recycle, reuse and abate emissions and to determine the maximum level of emissions that will be permitted from new facilities.

The main environmental objective of IPPC is to prevent or solve pollution problems rather than transferring them from one part of the environment to another. Concentrating controls on a single environmental medium can serve only to create an incentive to release and/or transfer pollution from one medium to another. It also goes beyond the traditional framework of pollution control by encouraging the anticipation of the environmental effects of emissions, not just in the environmental medium into which they are released (for example, air) but also addresses the potential for those emissions to cross-over into other environmental media and cause harm to water and land.

Once an application is received by the Agency, any person can make a submission to the Agency regarding the application. Following an assessment of the application and any submissions received, the Agency can grant a licence without conditions, grant a licence subject to conditions or refuse a licence. At this point in the process any person has 21 days to examine the proposed determination and make an objection to the Agency and the applicant has 28 days. When all the objections have been considered by the Agency, a final decision is made, either to grant an IPPC licence with or without conditions or to refuse a licence.

If you would like further information on the way in which an IPPC licence application is processed, and the individual procedures involved, go to the following web page:

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY