Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that the Minister will look at water resources and potentially list that on Report Stage. That would be useful.

On amendment No. 154, again, the Minister has indicated that he is going to be looking at this. He said these issues can be achieved through guidance and made reference to the guidance that has been issued. To complement the guidance that has been issued, however, it would be much better to have the wording in the Bill as well. What we are doing now is looking at the Bill and the legislation. We are not looking at the guidance that has been issued. If it were in this Bill as well, it would strengthen that. It has been a gap in our planning legislation that there has not been reference to how good, sustainable development can contribute to human health and well-being. When the previous legislation was done 25 years ago, was well-being even talked about as much? It probably was not talked about or recognised. Given that this Bill is meant to be here for the next 20 or 25 years, well-being certainly should fit into it.

On amendment No. 150, the Minister has made the case that with restoration, there would be challenges in respect of practical implementation and baseline capacity of the planning system, and they are valid points. Our wording is not prescriptive on any of those matters but if restoration does not make it into the Bill, those challenges are not necessarily going to be met, although they might be met further down the line in how the EU nature restoration law is implemented and so forth. Again, this Bill is for the next 20 to 25 years and not to have restoration in it would be a massive omission. There will be work to be done after on implementation, addressing capacity and competing objectives. However, the Minister said that one objective does not necessarily trump another and we need to do all of those. That is why we need to include “restoration” in the Bill and in the wording of this section because if it does not get in, we are not even in the space of looking at baselines and so forth.