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

I do not have the experience of maritime applications and this applies to both land-based and maritime in subsections (3) and (4). Regarding land-based applications, I have seen on occasion the eligibility of someone to make an application being in question. Whether that has been subject to legal challenge, I could not say. For example, I have seen situations where a developer makes a planning application that includes public lands they do not own, in some instances public park lands. Therefore, the local community residents have an interest in whether the developer is eligible to include those public lands in the application. They may have questions on how the council gave permission, if permission was given and it was given not by the elected members but rather by officials. They are all legitimate questions for people in the local community to have. Because they would not be in these listed categories of people, this would preclude them, in any case or circumstances, challenging this in the courts, which I think they should be entitled to do if they have strong concerns about it. Will the Minister of State explain why the Government is bringing these measures to curtail that? I can only imagine this being challenged in the courts in a small number of instances. It is not as if this is a standard problem around applications.