Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I do not disagree with any strengthening of this Bill with regard to biodiversity, absolutely not. The Deputy will appreciate that the national biodiversity action plan was only adopted by Government since this Bill was published. It is now on a statutory footing. What we want to do is try to achieve that strengthening within this Bill and give effect to what the national biodiversity action plan is trying to achieve. It will require some considerable work. I am more than happy to update the committee on how we set about doing that. I absolutely appreciate, however, that all the amendments here are about trying to strengthen our planning legislation and planning law with regard to biodiversity. As we have just adopted this fourth national plan, it is important that we do it in a way that ensures there is an alignment across all plans in that hierarchy of plans we mentioned in the national planning framework and in this legislation and, critically, as I said, down to local authority development plans, which is where the granular element of the implementation of the national biodiversity action plan will be delivered.