The Status of EU Protected Habitats and Species in Ireland
The EU Directive on the Conservation of Habitats, Flora and Fauna (92/43/EEC), commonly known as “the Habitats Directive”, was adopted in 1992, came into force in 1994 and was transposed into Irish law in 1997.
The main aim of the Habitats Directive is to contribute towards the conservation of biodiversity by requiring Member States to take measures to maintain or restore natural habitats and wild species listed on the Annexes to the Directive at a favourable conservation status. These annexes list habitats (Annex I) and species (Annexes II, IV and V) which are considered threatened in the EU territory. The listed habitats and species represent a considerable proportion of biodiversity in Ireland and the Directive itself is one of the most important pieces of legislation governing the conservation of biodiversity in Europe.
Under Article 11 of the Directive, each member state is obliged to undertake surveillance of the conservation status of the natural habitats and species in the Annexes and under Article 17, to report to the European Commission every six years on their status and on the implementation of the measures taken under the Directive.
In August 2025, Ireland submitted the fourth assessment of conservation status for 59 habitats and 60 species (including three overview assessments of species at a group level). A further 8 species are considered to be vagrant in Ireland.
The Article 17 report for 2025 is published in 3 volumes: An overview report (Volume 1), released in December 2025, provides more detail on the methodologies, an easy-to-read summary of the results and a list of contributors to the assessments. Volume 2 (Habitats) and Volume 3 (Species) contain the detailed reports and relevant scientific information.
The spatial data for the third Article 17 report submitted in 2025 are will be made available in due course.