Ms Attracta U? Bhroin:

I echo Ms Duvall's concerns regarding the timeframes. The clock should start when the information is available. Participation is a much bigger challenge now than it has ever been. When the Planning and Development Act 2000 came out, it was actually really progressive legislation in respect of participatory rights. We are now in 2023 and the Bill has not moved on. We are still talking about newspaper notices and things like that. There should be much more diverse obligations specified in the Bill about effective participation to enable that and reach out to people, not just to the usual suspects, but recognising that we have a far more diverse society with multiple challenges in respect of language, learning, reading, writing, and all of these different types of things. I was talking to the chief commissioner in the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission on Saturday and it has made a submission to the Joint Committee on Justice on the need for a fitness check; basically the need for a committee that works across all legislation, evaluating its fitness for purpose in order to be fair to people, to the ordinary public, in terms of their engagement. In respect of prescribed bodies specifically, what I found quite alarming in a number of sections of the Bill was the extent of discretion there is in respect of whether one does or does not consult prescribed bodies. It would be very helpful if the committee were to be make recommendations in respect of the need, particularly for environmental sector non-governmental organisations, ENGOs, and certain civil society bodies representative of wider bodies to be included.