Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I and any reasonable person reading this could easily construe that in issuing and formulating a national planning statement, the Minister will have regard to a series of things that are set out and that include “the assessment of any application for development consent”. Surely, “the assessment of any application for development consent under Part 4” should not at all be a consideration in the issuing of a planning statement. Surely, that should not be the reason. Worryingly, that sounds like a Minister might issue a national policy statement on a particular planning application. That is what it reads like. That is definitely stepping over the line.