Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a couple of points. As regards the accreditation system, I have watched a lot of planning permissions over the years, including ones where an environmental impact assessment is required. They are required to be independent but I found it strange that in all those years I never saw one arguing against the proposal. I would have thought there would be something that would not make it through that kind of rigorous assessment. How is it intended to proceed with the accreditation and will there be reviews to examine some of the assessments?

The second point I wanted to draw attention to is that of in-house expertise. A lot of the people who worked in local authority planning departments in recent years were employed on temporary contracts, so they were the first out the door. Quite a lot of expertise was lost as a result. It is not just a question of having the resources within local authorities. There is also an implicit cost in this. In an environment where there is a public service recruitment embargo and a reduction in available funding, how is it intended to compensate local authorities that must take on an additional work load without extra resources?

Food will play a much bigger economic role in future. Will Food Harvest 2020 require an environmental impact assessment? If so, how will it play out and who will administer it?