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

I want to reply to two points and get a bit of clarity on how section 34 operates at the point when a direction is issued. I will ask the question first. Section 34(8) states that where the Minister decides under subsection (7) that a draft direction should be issued under section 37, he or she shall identify the stated reasons and direct the OPR to issue the draft direction.

I am keen to know whether that direction will need to be complied with or whether the future provenance of that direction will split into section 35, which we might deal with when we get to it.

As to the Minister of State's general response, I do not think, although I may not have explained myself properly, that he gets the specific challenge I am raising here. He talked about gaps being exploited, to use his word, resulting in JRs. Clearly, he seems to be referring to cases where there are gaps between existing plans and central Government policy as per the SPPRs, suggesting people are exploiting those and taking judicial reviews. I am not sure that is necessarily the fairest language because many of those judicial reviews would not necessarily be exploitative but are taken by environmental activists advocating the rights of nature, for example, or community activists advocating the development of their community.

My specific concern is not when third parties end up in this conflict. It is when the conflict is between, as in this instance, the assembly and the Minister, and there have been examples, albeit with different layers of plan-making, where such conflicts have arisen. A spatial plan could have been democratically agreed by its members and there could then be a national planning policy statement with a procedure to, as the Minister of State described it, retrospectively insist on alignment and consistency, and the elected members or the executive may decide that is not acceptable to them. These things have happened in real time. I am wondering whether the Minister of State has adequately thought through the potential for that kind of conflict arising from this. For example, given the length of time that passes between plans, there is also the likelihood of potential changes of the Government. There could be different political complexions of regional assemblies versus those of central Government and we could end up with political rows being fought through these mechanisms. That is seen even in the fact the Minister of State's answer seems to relate more to trying to prevent, limit or reduce third party judicial reviews, whereas for me it is about first and second party ones in this case.

Moreover, this will be ultimately a decision of the Minister, not of the Government or the Cabinet, and there will be no role for the Oireachtas other than that in subsection (11), which states that a “direction issued under paragraph (b)of subsection (9)shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas”. Again, there is that potential conflict between an assembly, albeit not directly elected, having some democratic legitimacy, and the Minister. There are potentials for conflict in that regard that I do not think the Government has thought through, and nothing in the Minister of State's answer suggested the Government has thought through those conflicts adequately.