Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would like to thank the secretariat and the case manager. As we, in Cork, would say, your head has to be absolutely wrecked because I can understand the amount of paperwork that went with this. Going through the correspondence, I was struck that in my constituency, even in the town council and urban district council, we have problems with developments on rivers and seaways. We are going back to more than 400 years ago when King James I bequeathed something in Youghal. We cannot even develop a marina there, believe it or not. We are still backing that today.

I looked at the two cases here and I remember the case of Mr. Barrett which was before the last committee meeting. There was substantial information in it. Even in the midst of a Covid pandemic - the dogs in the street would know this - there is photographic evidence showing that there was development on the estuary between 31 August and 28 October. It is from a greenfield site to what looks like the base of another jetty. I do not know if members can see that. Certainly, if this is ongoing, and these two petitioners in particular have mentioned it, I very strongly welcome the recommendations from the committee on this. When we were setting the committee up again, we wanted to adjust the rules, regulations and powers. That is proper order. I agree that Westmeath County Council, Waterways Ireland and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government should be invited in to help answer these questions. I certainly support that.