Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State can speak for himself. I suspect I am not wrong. If the Minister of State says I am wrong, I will happily accept his word. He is right that our amendments are piecemeal. This is the first opportunity we have had to table them but at least we have gone and tabled them. At least we are attempting to strengthen the way in which this Bill and the planning system impacts on what is an increasingly accelerated loss of biodiversity. I fully accept that the Minister of State faces a dilemma with amendments Nos. 199 and 201 because they have different wordings. I fully accept that there may be better ways of wording them. If he were to give this committee a commitment to do everything within his influence to ensure section 24 includes a specific consideration of biodiversity and to say that he will go away and work very hard to ensure that, I would be somewhat satisfied. Here is the reason why. The list in section 24 is clearly a list of what the drafters of this Bill have decided are the most important considerations. It is no accident that biodiversity is not on that list because the drafters of this Bill do not think it is important. I know I am making assumptions but it is pretty obvious that they do not. If the Minister of State would do everything he can to convince his colleagues in the Department and the Government and come back with a wording that gives us a stand-alone requirement for the Minister to have regard to - I am trying to think of the exact wording - the desirability of setting out policy and providing guidance in respect of planning matters on this issue, that would be welcome. However, I would like to hear it more definitively.

The national planning policy statements are probably the single biggest innovation in this Bill. They are probably the single most significant change to our planning system, in good ways and bad, as we will discuss them when we get to them. If it is not in here, it is not going to happen. It will be left to the development plans of local authorities and to regional spatial plans. If the Minister of State will give us a firmer commitment as to what he intends to do, I will take him at this word but we will hold him to it when we get to Report Stage. I will come back in on amendment No. 410 when we get to it.