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

Again, I am reading the two relevant sections which would no longer apply. Section 154, on confirmation by State authority, includes, for example, "notify the planning authority within whose functional area it is proposed to carry out the development concerned" and "notify each person who made a submission in respect of the proposed development". Without going into the details, we had a facility in my constituency on which emergency planning exemptions were used. The building was occupied by a large number of people. It was then subject to potential fire safety planning enforcement by the local authority, after much wrangling between the local authority and a Government Department. On foot of that, the individuals concerned had to be evacuated because of fire safety. It was never fire safe. Significant work then had to be done. That is an incident and that is not even at the level of emergency we are talking about here.

Given that these two provisions, the notification procedure and the confirmation procedure, were originally proposed, what is the rationale for proposing them, if not removing them? We all accept that in the case of an emergency that things need to be done quickly, so nobody is proposing to slow things down but doing things quickly does not mean that there are no checks. For example, if there is a field hospital or an emergency residential unit that has a large number of people in it then at least ensure it is compliant.