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

Amendment No. 271 refers to section 31. It seeks to delete the existing wording, which provides four weeks for a regional authority to publish the regional spatial and economic strategy. The amendment provides that where a regional assembly agrees to make a regional spatial and economic strategy or a revision to an existing strategy, it shall:

... within 1 week of agreeing to make the strategy or revision, as the case may be— (a) publish notice of the agreement to make the strategy or the revision on a website.

This is to provide time for the general public to look at the RSES and to ensure compliance with our obligations under the Aarhus Convention. There seems to be a disparity here in that the Bill is allowing four weeks for an assembly to publish the RSES but is only providing a limited window to respond to it or to anything omitted from it. Why are four of the eight potential weeks for the public to look at the strategy being taken out the equation by allowing the assembly to sit on the RSES for that number of weeks? Why is it not just one week? Why not provide that the assembly will go ahead and publish it straight away? What is the reason for the four-week timeframe?