Rory Mulcahy SC told the High Court that Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) could not assert that any failures breached human rights under the Constitution and the European Convention because the group was not a “human person”. Picture: Collins CourtsMr Mulcahy was addressing the court on the closing day of the case taken by FIE, a group supported by other environmental and human rights groups and backed by an online petition with, at last count, the signatures of 16,800 human persons. By those failures, it argued, the NMP did not comply with the Carbon Act 2015 and breached human rights including the right to life, property, livelihood, and an environment consistent with human dignity. In addition to his contention that FIE was not entitled to claim human rights breaches, Mr Mulcahy said the European Convention did not cover the kind of “general environmental deterioration” envisaged under climate change. He said in failing to provide an adequate NMP, the State had “exposed its citizens to risk and danger without justification”.

Source: Irish Examiner January 26, 2019 04:30 UTC