EPA Ireland Submission Data available as RSS, CSV and SQLite

Whilst there is a ton of useful data on the EPA Ireland web-site, it’s not exactly easy to track what’s going on.

Tool built by https://twitter.com/conoro to scrape the thousands of individual RSS feeds and generate what is hopefully helpful to those of you who wish to monitor submissions on the site.

The code is all up on GitHub here. In summary what it does is:

  • Once a day around 1.30am GMT, it scrapes all the feeds on the EPA site
  • It saves all the data into a SQLite database and uploads that to Amazon S3
  • It updates a single small RSS feed with all the submissions from the previous day
  • It generates a new CSV file with the same data as the RSS feed and saves that to GitHub

Subscribing to the RSS Feed

Use this URL in Feedly or similar: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/conoro/epa-rss/main/output/daily.xml

Viewing the daily CSV files.

They are all here in the repo starting on Sep 22nd 2022: https://github.com/conoro/epa-rss/tree/main/output/csv/daily

Getting notified by email (experimental)

If you’d like to receive email with a link to the latest CSV each day:

  • Create a GitHub Account
  • Click the drop-down menu beside “Watch” in the top right of this project’s page.
  • Select “Custom” and tick the box beside “Issues”. Then click Apply.
  • You should start receiving the emails beginning tomorrow.

SQLite Database

The latest full set of scraped data is available as a SQLite DB that you can download here. Use something like SQLiteStudio to browse and query it.

Examining the data in the SQLite Database using Datasette Lite

You can use a very cool project by Simon Willison called Datasette Lite to browse and query all the latest data in your browser by going here. I highly recommend playing around with it, as you can query by keywords and date ranges.

https://conoroneill.net/2022/09/26/epa-ireland-submission-data-available-as-rss-csv-sqlite/

Open Data Request: Whether DAFM’s decision to refuse the appellant’s request for re-use of EIA screenings for felling licences was in compliance with the Regulations

Decision of the Information Commissioner in his capacity as Appeal Commissioner on an appeal made under Regulation 12 of the European Union (Open Data and Re-use of Public Sector Information) Regulations 2021 (the Regulations)

Case RPSI/22/05

OEE reports on its inspection and enforcement activities as presented biannually to the Board of the EPA for 2021, 2022 and 2023 YTD

AIE Request

Focus of OEE inspections 2022

OEE Enforcement Data and NPS summary 2018-2022

This memo sets out a review of the National Priority sites and OEE Enforcement Data for 2022 as well as a review of trends since 2018 for some of the key data.

OEE Inspection Approach and Plan for 2021

Remediation works to a closed landfill, Cork

Case reference: JN04.316135 Kealanine, Coomhola, Bantry, Co. Cork

https://www.pleanala.ie/en-ie/case/316135

https://goo.gl/maps/Da9Qppvdrrcmmhrs7

Description

Remediation works to a closed landfill.

Case type

L.A. Dev. – NIS Direction

Decision

Case is due to be decided by 26/07/2023

EIAR

No

NIS

No

Parties

  • West Cork County Council (Applicant)
  • Cork County Council (Planning Authority) (Active)
  • West Cork County Council (Planning Authority) (Active)

History

  • 23/03/2023 Lodged

https://epawebapp.epa.ie/terminalfour/HLF/HLF-view.jsp?regno=H0089-01

Milltownpass Bog – unlicenced peat extraction site

https://goo.gl/maps/gCAxovtAchF2Hv786

https://goo.gl/maps/FdVGKRv6ic7QGg2q7

Also see:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/man-proclaiming-to-be-not-of-your-society-jailed-for-contempt-1.4276976

The National Parks and Wildlife Service has brought proceedings against Mr Daragh Coyne who it is claimed has engaged in activities that have resulted in damage to Milltownpass Bog in Co. Westmeath which has been a designated NHA for several years.

The Minister for Culture Heritage and the Gaeltacht, which is responsible for the service, previously obtained temporary injunctions preventing Mr Coyne from carrying out any unauthorised works on or interfering with the NHA.

The lands in question where the illegal activities are alleged to have taken place are owned by both the Minister, and by a member of Mr Coyne’s family, the court heard. Mr Coyne, of Coralstown, Mullingar Co Westmeath, denies any wrongdoing.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30998466.html

A man has been convicted and fined €15,000 for dumping in Milltownpass Bog, which is a protected natural heritage area, in Co Westmeath last year. The case was brought before Mullingar District Court by the Minister for Heritage on April 8th. The man was also instructed to pay €3,810 in costs.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/man-fined-15-000-for-dumping-in-milltownpass-bog-1.4537489