The Government is being urged by An Taisce to appoint an independent environmental ombudsman or "enforcer" with sweeping powers to ensure that planning, environmental and heritage laws are observed.
The "enforcer" would have a brief to implement all legislation in these areas and would take appropriate action where relevant Government agencies at national and local level fail to act, "including where they fail to implement EU legislation".
The proposal is among many made by An Taisce in a lengthy document which it says is aimed at "influencing Government policy in a positive way" rather than merely putting forward "our usual end-of-year critique of the declining environment in Ireland".
It maintains that Irish environmental legislation is not implemented because "too much is left to the discretion" of the Minister for the Environment, the Environmental Protection Agency and local authorities, who are reluctant to exercise their powers.
In particular, it accuses local authorities of failing to enforce the law where historic buildings fall into disrepair and it says that "only a fraction" of the recommendations by Dúchas, the Heritage Service, to afford protected status to particular buildings have been implemented.
To implement the "polluter pays" principle, An Taisce suggests that a general tax should be levied on widely-used polluting materials, such as plastic bottles, along the lines of the 15 cent tax on plastic bags, which has reduced their use by 95 per cent.
It notes that the €7 million raised from this tax in 2002 is to go to a special fund to finance a range of environmental intiatives, including the establishment of an Office for Environmental Enforcement - promised in the FF/PD Programme for Government.
Referring to the controversial issue of waste management, An Taisce notes that it is still heavily reliant on landfill and calls for a "radical move" towards waste prevention, waste reduction, local recycling, composting and small-scale residual landfills.
On agriculture, it endorses the Fischler proposals for reforming the Common Agricultural Policy but says that these proposals need to be supported by an extension of the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme, incentives for organic farming and taxes on pesticide and fertiliser use.
An Taisce also wants the EU Habitats Directive to be implemented in full through designating special areas of conservation (SACs) "based on scientific criteria only". Currently, it says, Dúchas is being "unduly pressurised" not to designate such sites.
On water quality, An Taisce notes that only 60 per cent of group water schemes fall within acceptable safety levels because of contamination by septic tanks and poor management of farmyard waste. It says that all consumers should be charged for water.
An Taisce is seeking a ban on holiday homes in the countryside as well as restrictions on the sale by farmers of "one-off" houses or sites to "non-locals", who should have to pay the "true price" of their developments - including a 20 per cent contribution to social housing.
The document states: "We continue to build over 35 per cent of our housing in the countryside even though nearly all professional sociolologists and all economists and environmentalists consider this a time-bomb. Government ministers promote this. None advocate curtailing it."
Dealing with transport, An Taisce complains that the Government has increased the funding for national roads by €209 million to €1.25 billion while failing to provide any money to link the designated "gateways" of Sligo, Galway, Limerick, Cork and Waterford by rail.
It calls on the EU Commission to consider withdrawing funding from the roads programme until there are "proper" environmental impact assessments and it wants work suspended on the Carrickmines motorway until archaeological issues are resolved.
On energy, An Taisce says that there should be mandatory procurement of electricity from renewable sources, such as wind turbines, no new peat-fired power stations and an increase in VAT on all fossil fuels from the reduced rate of 12.5 per cent to the standard rate.
