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

I have one question to put back to Mr. Mahon. I am fairly familiar with this subject. The EU is good at saying responsibility lies in Ireland, and I am not defending anyone here, above all things. I was over there as well, however, and I was told it was the member states that decide this, that and the other. The people in Brussels are good at telling us this. One directive is causing all these problems and that is the habitats directive. It has damned every port and every road. Everything we go at in Ireland now has problems caused by the habitats directive, which was originally signed into law by our current President. We have environmental impact assessments, EIAs, screening out and all the different palaver in this regard. This is giving an open door to the environmental lobby to bring people to court on every issue.

On the figures and the timelines Mr. Mahon has gone through, it means that before he even goes for the last round in the boxing ring in this regard some three years will have passed from now, and two more years can be added then. Decisions have to be made on this aspect. I ask the other witnesses to address my other questions. I ask Mr. Mahon to respond on the habitats directive because it is freezing forestry, roads and ports and coming back to young people building houses. The directive is the greatest damning thing that ever came into this country. Additionally, Mr. Mahon's company might be operating in other countries, but they might not have the same number of environmentalists who have decided to fly through Dublin airport, started living here and decided to challenge our regulations.