Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses talk about not going down the route of a single consent system in legislation and they say the route we are on at the moment would be better because one route would take as long as the other. I mention someone who has 50 ha and has to get an IPC licence and go through all of this. This is similar to the quarry situation that the Departments are involved in, which is a total fiasco and mess. Ordinary people do not have money to be running in and out given the cost that is involved in all of this. Is it the case that the Departments are basically trying to export things out of our country or that they are trying to look after big business alone? If you look at quarries, it is the big quarries that will survive and the small ordinary person will be thrown out on top of his or her head with the stuff we have in and with what it is costing to get all these licences.

We might have lost a court case but why were we not prepared to go back and bring it to a higher level? Ordinary people lose cases in the District Court and they head to the Circuit Court because they believe they are right. If the Departments believed they were right to put in the legislation, why was it not challenged?