Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I accept the point. There are a whole number of different amendments in this and the health impact assessment is an add-in, something different, and it would obviously put a more considerable burden, as it were, on the competent authority in evaluating these measures. I do not have a problem with that because, if it were really doing its job properly, carrying out an impact assessment from a health perspective, something we do not do enough in this country, it would be precisely the type of impact assessment that should be done. We are all used to environmental impact assessments but we are not so used to health impact assessments. I realise that is raising the bar but that is appropriate in the context of this legislation, although I realise I am pushing the boundary on that. I will park that for now, with the right to re-enter it, but, having genuinely said that, I do not accept what the Minister says about the other points on health. We have been here for in the region of four hours, so maybe I am just not getting it. On one hand, we are being told we cannot add something, then the Minister is reading something which specifies health aspects, then saying nowhere in our legislation is there a reference to health considerations but is then saying that he cannot take away or add anything.

Obviously, the Minister has taken it away because health is not mentioned anywhere in the Bill. If it is so much an integral part of the regulation, which it clearly is, there is no impediment to specifying it in some format and I have not heard any good reason for not doing so. I would like to explore the idea of a health impact assessment and I reserve the right to introduce an amendment on that. The Department is correct, however, that that would be pushing it. I do not have it in the definitions either and I would need to have it in there. While that is a whole new arena, mentioning health is not. It is much more straightforward. It is striking that every Opposition committee member has said clearly that they expect health and the guidelines to be factored in in some format when we get to Report Stage. I hope the Minister is hearing that message because Opposition members will get together to agree on amendments if the Department does not factor in health. Hopefully, in the promised discussions in the next week, we can all come up with a wording with which we could all live.