Mr. Patrick Swords:

The guidelines are part of a legal due process. The current guidelines are being used in a compulsory manner by An Bord Pleanála for deciding planning permissions. They are legally binding norms. They fall under Article 8 of the convention in that there must be a public participation process. Once the public submissions were received there was only a two-week window in February last year. This is inadequate as a preparation timeframe and was not compliant. We requested and received more than 900 records, and more than 500 public submissions were received. The public submissions referred to concerns about health and annoyance issues, yet the Department decided to exclude health considerations from its guidelines. What is the point in the legal basis for these guidelines, considering they have failed to take due account of the public participation process, which they have ignored? We have requested the record but it has not been provided. Guidelines are put in place to protect residential amenity, which means that people should not suffer annoyance or adverse health effects. What is the point of these guidelines? They have absolved themselves from having any legal validity with regard to health.