Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 26 January 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

General Scheme of the Marine Protected Areas Bill 2023: Discussion

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

I accept all that. I will make one other analogy. We have much experience of terrestrial planning and building control. There are bad practices in our recent past that we need to learn from. For example, people who build buildings on land have a legal obligation to build in compliance with the standards. Two weeks ago, the Government announced a €2.5 billion bill for the taxpayer because of non-compliance. Even though there were clear standards and legal obligations, with the absence of adequate enforcement, particularly to ensure that non-compliance is then rectified by those responsible, one would have thought that there was an opportunity with this legislation to ensure strong mechanisms so that if somebody fails to comply, there is not only a legal obligation but a mechanism to ensure that people rectify and restore the damage. That is really what I am asking.

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