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

I have not heard anybody, in any of my engagements on this issue, saying that the status quo should remain. I am not saying those people do not exist but I have not come across them, and it is certainly not the argument of those of us on this side of the Chamber. I am not so sure what the Minister means by his reference to some experts forgetting, in his comments around efficiency and effectiveness. However, it was striking in the prelegislative scrutiny that there is a very broad range of people and it is not that they are experts only. It is that they work the system every single day. They are our local authority planners - who we had in - the Irish Planning Institute, developers, legal professionals who operate in the courts on either side of judicial reviews, either taking them or defending against them. Over and over again they told this committee that there very significant portions of this Bill - and this is one of them - that are going to make the system less efficient and effective.

I would say back to the Minister with regard to his comments around experts sometimes forgetting that I think it would be a serious mistake for any Minister to ignore a growing weight of opinion, and it is a growing weight of opinion. We have had it here from such a range of sectors with regard to the challenges of this Bill. I have been working in the Oireachtas for 12 years as an adviser and then as a TD for two terms. In the work I did, both as an adviser in two portfolios and then in this committee since 2016, I have never come across a Bill that has such united concern and criticism from a range of sectors that would often be on conflicting sides of the debate. Often with a piece of legislation, one sector is more in favour of it and another sector is more against because they feel it is imbalanced. The weight of concern around the extent to which this Bill will undermine the efficiency and effectiveness of the planning system is quite remarkable. Again, the Minister does not have to believe me. He just has to listen to a very wide range of people. That is not just with the earlier drafts of the Bill; it is also with this draft of the Bill. Likewise, there is probably more surprise than I have ever come across, across a wider range of organisations, on what they believe is the lack of due regard to the submissions they have made to the Department, and which they have shared with this committee with regard to the content of the Bill. Again, this section is one, and I want to put that on the record.

With respect to the transboundary ones, the one I was actually thinking of was not a strategic application. It was one public body that had a development that crossed the boundary of two local authorities. A single body asked both bodies if it was exempted or not, and they came up with different decisions. The Minister is absolutely right in that with any planning decision or unauthorised development decision, of course there is an element of subjective interpretation of the rules. I accept that. I acknowledge that not everybody is going to decide the same thing all of the time. However, it points to the fact that there is a need for some process.

I am going to ask the Minister the one question he has not answered. I know he said he is willing to look at it but I am looking for something more specific from him. He has defended his change on the basis that there is a current problem with first-party rights and them not being involved and consulted. What the Minister is proposing creates exactly the same problem, or continues the existing problem with respect to third-party rights. Therefore, for me it is not about whether your involve some groups such as environmental non-governmental organisations, ENGOs. Third-party rights are third-party rights under the Aarhus Convention and under EU and Irish law. People have a right to engage in the process, and also people engaging in the process could be really helpful because they could provide information that would allow a more informed decision by the planning authority. I would be really interested to hear - given that he was the one who said there were Aarhus compliance issues around the exclusion of first parties when it is a third-party application, or a third-party application for declaration - how does the Minister apply it to third parties in respect of what he has proposed here? It seems to me that this is just as big a problem, and I would have hoped that the Attorney General or Attorneys General would have made the same point to the Minister in their advice.