Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 2 February 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government
General Scheme of the Marine Protected Areas Bill 2023: Discussion (Resumed)
Ms Attracta U? Bhroin:
There are 113 of them. Some of them are legitimate but others are very concerning.
Regarding the timeline, let us compare it with what this committee will be looking at over the next number of weeks in the Planning and Development Act. There will be pressure for timelines for delivering development - understandably so in the context of our housing and energy crises - and pressure on decision makers to come back with decisions. They will be penalised financially if they do not do so. Those are the proposals we are seeing coming forward from the same Department. However, when it comes to delivering on obligations that are already nine years late, there are virtually no timelines in the Bill saying the Minister must do "X". I will ask other colleagues to comment on the targets.
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