Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This section relates specifically to environment and climate change. Deputy Ó Broin is well aware that a substantive amount of legislation in that area has been brought in by the Government, which has updated the development Act itself. It is not a question that we are coming to something where there has been a vacuum for many years; it is quite the reverse. There has been a substantive body of work and the development Act has already been updated for the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. We are going back and looking at the 2021 Act but not every section of the Act will be relevant to this particular section. We will have to go back to the OPC to see what we will reference in it. It is more that we are reflecting it here in a structural way because the current Planning and Development Act has already been updated based on various pieces of legislation and climate action plans that have gone through in recent times. It is already very current, we are just making certain that is reflected in the new Bill.