Brendan Ryan (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Five amendments in this group are in my name and I am the joint proposer of others. My amendments are related to my view and that of my party and the residents. They are based on my party's legal advice that Fingal County Council should not be designated the competent body because it is not independent enough. An alternative body with the required independence is needed. The Minister and his advisers have got it wrong. It is no shame to admit that, even at this stage. On Second Stage many of us asked the Minister to take on board what people were saying and to return on this Stage with an amended version of the legislation which took that on board. We were not making it up just for the sake of it. There is a real sense that it does not have independence, and there should be recognition of that from the Minister and his officials.

The two proposals in this grouping for alternative bodies are the Commission for Aviation Regulation, CAR, and the EPA. My preference is for the CAR but I am not hung up on that. If the Minister or Department officials felt that the EPA was better from their point of view, I would take that advice. During the debate on Second Stage, I spoke about the lack of independence and gave the ESB as example of true independence, where we have EirGrid, Electric Ireland and the ESB itself. They all have separate independent boards with no mixed or overlapping functions.

What the Minister is proposing here is that the CEO of Fingal County Council - referred to as FCC in the Bill - will not be independent of the local authority itself. That is a fact. The Bill, as proposed, does not achieve functional separation between the competent authority and the local residents. Deputy Clare Daly has gone through section 13 and the need for independence. Article 3.2 goes on to provide that:

The competent authorities shall be independent of any organisation which could be affected by noise-related action. That independence may be achieved through a functional separation.

That is open to challenge because what is proposed here does not have that functional separation. In respect of my amendments, my proposal is to go for the CAR as the competent authority. My amendment No. 4 is about interpretation and it inserts "CAR". My amendment No. 6, in section 2, again on interpretation, deletes "FCC". My amendment No. 7, in section 3 on the designation of the competent authority, replaces "FCC" with "CAR". My amendment No. 10, in section 3 on the designation of competent authority, deletes lines 10 to 38 on page 7 and lines 1 to 12 on page 8 because that section deals specifically with a relationship with a local authority. The best thing to do, therefore, is to eliminate those lines completely if the CAR, or somebody else, is designated rather than Fingal County Council. My amendment No. 42 also just replaces "FCC" with the "CAR".

I am not going to go over all that has been said. There is general agreement across the board, even from Fianna Fáil in respect of what it is proposing. There is no acceptance that this is independent enough. Something has to change and I will certainly be hoping to achieve that between today and Report Stage.