Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, line 23, after “habitats” to insert the following:“and the Minister may carry out further reviews of other National Heritage areas (in this section referred to as ‘other reviews’) as she or he sees fit”.

I welcome this Bill but it is too narrow. The Bill basically allows the Minister to de-designate some NHA raised bogs on the basis that she has alternatives to put in their place. The problem that has arisen on the raised bogs, however, could arise anywhere. There are issues, for example, with NHAs which are blocking the provision of major infrastructure. Maybe a similar process could be followed where not only is an individual good involved but the national good is too.

For many years, for example, we have been trying to build a road through the heart of Connemara and designation has been a problem. I accept the SACs and the SPAs are virtually immutable. However, what is proved here is that where there is a will, there is a way. A NHA is not immutable as long as the Minister compensates - the basis of this Bill - for a NHA to be taken out with another NHA of equal standing or, maybe even in many cases, of better standing.

Therefore, what I sought to do in this case is to give general application to a specific instance approach taken by the Department. I do not understand why it took the approach to have raised bogs only and it did not put in a procedure that could be applied in any case where one needs to de-designate an NHA, as happened in this case, and re-designate it with another piece of land as an NHA.

I will press my amendment unless I get a satisfactory answer as to why it is literally limited as a process. If a process is in place and there are enough safeguards in it, which the Minister will tell me is the case with raised bogs, why could the same safeguards not be put in if the Department subsequently decided to de-designate some other NHA and put something else in its place? That is what I am trying to replicate in my amendment. Given that it has been shown that an NHA designation should not be immutable and permanent, why was a general process not put in place to allow for de-designation and re-designation of other lands as NHAs, as a generality where the case may arise and where an overriding local or national interest would warrant it?