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

It is just a fact of the process. Moreover, this is on an issue that is not peripheral to good quality planning in the 21st century but one which is absolutely essential. Again, this is no criticism of anyone in this room but this is what happens when you ask the former Attorney General and a bunch of lawyers to go off and do the first draft of a Bill. On profound issues of planning, had the Government put the country’s leading planning experts, including some people in this room, into the initial drafting room or had it asked some of the country’s leading academics on transport-oriented development from TUD, etc. to produce a Bill, much of this would already be in the legislation, possibly in a better way than Deputy Matthews, I or any Opposition spokesperson could draft. Again, it speaks to the frailty of the legislation we have in front of us.

I have four specific questions on amendments. I am not clear at all why the Minister of State is not willing to accept amendment No. 350. I am not sure why he will not accept No. 481 – these are all separate to the issues we have raised heretofore – or Nos. 616 and 794. I would like the Minister of State to explain as clearly as he can either why he cannot accept the amendment or, if he cannot accept the spirit of the amendment, why he cannot do that. I refer to the idea, for example, that in Chapter 7 in the miscellaneous section - this relates to Deputy Matthew’s amendment No. 794 - one would not provide, apart from the Minister to make regulations, for issues regarding electric vehicle charging points and car parks, for example. We have a plethora of problems in our new development housing estates where there is a lack of clarity on what the actual requirements are. Some developers have a very high volume of charging points but in other places, the number of houses that have charging points is completely random. Likewise, if I understand amendment No. 616, it is to ensure that it is not only space for parking but also storage of, say, bicycles and those sorts of things. That seems eminently sensible. I thought amendment No. 350 being located there made complete sense because Deputy Matthews proposes to put into that economic development strategy a series of really important conditions that would be helpful to the development of the strategy. Can the Minister of State give more clarity on the refusal to accept amendments Nos 350, 481, 616, 617 and 794?