Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We can certainly have a look at that. In the context of the planning system, we are looking in general at what community gains can be obtained for local communities, in particular local communities that are disrupted in any way by large infrastructural projects as a result of decisions of the planning system. The requirement to stipulate from whom one might procure services or with whom one might do business would not be permissible in respect of one company, as suggested by the Deputy, and not others. There is nothing preventing my Department seeking to establish certain protocols or understandings with the ESB generally, such as that it should recruit, say, 100 apprentices every year and should seek to do that by way of agreement. Enshrining that kind of imposition in primary legislation would not be permissible. I do not think, even if we were minded to run with it, that we would get that past the Parliamentary Draftsman.