Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 36:

In page 12, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following subsection:“(3) Where under this Act a notice is required to be delivered not later than a specified number of days after a particular date and the last of those days is a day which is a Saturday or Sunday or a public holiday (within the meaning of the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997), the notice shall be taken to be validly delivered if delivered on the next day which is not such a day.”.

This is a technical amendment to provide for a standard definition of the "days" based on that included in the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. The term "days" is used throughout the legislation and it was important this aspect did not generate any confusion on the application of legislation.

Some years ago, difficulties arose in the planning process because a person could submit a planning application on Christmas Eve. The days when it was to be considered started on 25 December and there would not be any public officials working for up to two weeks even though the clock had started ticking. We are setting out that "days" means days when people are working in the context of the seven day rule we are trying to invoke. That is the purpose of the amendment.