Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that. The real difficulty I have is that the time on Report Stage could be highly limited. We want to ask questions about, comment on and improve what the Minister of State comes forward with. It may simply be timed out on us. The Government usually guillotines Report Stage, which means there are only two, three or four hours when we need much longer. We probably will not even get to these issues on Report Stage, which means there is no accountability on it.

The Minister of State is acknowledging that there is something in the legislation that needs to be improved here. He is acknowledging that the work is going to be done but, potentially, there will be no accountability in the Dáil on that. This is our opportunity on Committee Stage to see what the Minister of State is proposing and interrogate that to see if we are happy with it. However, now all we know is that he will be doing something, but we do not know what. That is highly unsatisfactory. This is an area of key interest and key national importance around biodiversity enhancement, protection and restoration. We know the Government is going to do something in the Bill on it, but we do not know what with respect to the national planning framework. Therefore, it strikes me that this area of the Bill, as with many other areas, has come to us prematurely before this work has been done. It should be coming to us on Committee Stage with the Minister of State's proposals on biodiversity regarding the national planning framework, not a commitment that we will look at it on Report Stage. The crisis was declared in 2019. This is not new. I am in the dark as to what the Government is planning to do. All the Minister of State is saying is that he does not want to take my amendment and that he is planning to do something, but he cannot tell me what because that work has not been done yet. That puts us in a very poor situation indeed in terms of democratic process and accountability.

Amendment No. 201 on the national planning statement proposes to insert "protection, conservation and restoration of biodiversity". These are glaring omissions that should have been in the original draft of the Bill. From what the Minister of State is saying, there is agreement that they are omissions. Given that we have proposed specific wording here and given that the Minister of State cannot come to us with his wording or tell us what it will be, why will he not accept our amendments? If he does not disagree with our amendments, what is his rationale for not accepting them?