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

I will start again. It is my opinion that the Minister does not seem to understand the proposition as set out by my colleagues. I would like to offer the Minister the opportunity to convince me that he does understand the proposition, as well as set out a more credible case as to why he opposes it. Words matter and they matter more in legislation than anything else. What the amendment is trying to do is find a better formulation of words that ensures the conflict that Deputy Boyd Barrett has rightly highlighted is adequately resolved from the very beginning. The difficulty is that the conflict is real and live. It runs through the current national planning framework. It runs through the development plan. It also runs through our approach to housing.

We had considerable discussions at an earlier stage on whether we will meet our emissions reductions target with respect to the built environment. We had considerable exchanges with the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, on how many of us on this side of the House feel the Department is very behind the curve in terms of putting in place the necessary changes to planning, building control and public procurement within its remit to ensure those areas for which the Department is responsible for the built environment, in the building of social and affordable homes, for example, or its facilitation of the private sector to develop them, is done in a way that is consistent with sustainable development in terms of emissions reductions. Therefore, unless we make the requirement for sustainable development more explicit, and we elevate it above maximising potential in terms of spatial and regional development, the tension sides on the wrong side of sustainability argument. There is a very strong case for rewording this.

It is important to emphasise that we are seeking to change not the objectives, but the relationship between the objectives and ensuring that sustainable development is at all times at the centre and the principal consideration. If, for example, we miss our emissions reductions targets in the built environment, including in those areas that the Department has responsibility for, we will be in breach of our own legally binding climate action plan as well as international agreements. That would trigger fines that will involve a cost to the State and to the taxpayer. Therefore, this is not an issue of semantics. It is an issue of priorities. It is an issue of legal clarity and certainty.

Anybody operating, either for the production of the national planning framework, that is, the Minister's officials in the review of future NPFs but also all subsequent plans that are derived from those, understands clearly the prioritisation of sustainable development when considering issues of regional development and maximising potential. I genuinely think the Minister does not fully understand the import of what is being proposed but I invite him to convince me that he understands it and make a more credible case for not supporting it.