Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We can discuss this as a committee, but my understanding is that while we have agreed a general programme, we only have meetings definitively tied down for Tuesday and Thursday of next week. We are hoping to start Committee Stage of the Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021 on the following Tuesday, but that has not yet been confirmed. My understanding is that we have no committee meeting this Thursday.

This is a matter for the committee to decide and we do not have full attendance today. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan and I will raise this matter during private session on Tuesday. As a general rule, we always have at least two sessions of pre-legislative scrutiny, PLS, so we hear the views of both the Department and external bodies. The only time I remember we have not done that was when a Bill was so simple, clean or quick it was not required. We are not going to decide this now but I urge the Chair, between now and Tuesday, to consider if we can try to facilitate a second session. The value of these public sessions is that the public gets to see them and it adds to public scrutiny. This is very technical, complex stuff. It has very significant implications for people across communities throughout the State, including those in the Chair's constituency and mine. A second PLS session is not unreasonable, but let us debate it and decide at private session on Tuesday.