Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 438:

In page 113, lines 19 and 20, to delete “which shall take due account of the matters referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d) of subsection (1)”.

These amendments are of a minor technical and drafting nature. As mentioned earlier, there has been a process of continual refinement applied to the Bill by officials at my Department working intensively with the Bills Office and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, both of which I commend on their sterling efforts over recent months. Due to the highly technical nature of the planning processes, more than 500 sections of the Bill are densely cross-referenced, with many sections having multiple cross-references to either other subsections in the section or to other sections and Parts of the Bill. The amendments identify instances where these references can be improved to bring the user more directly to the relevant counterpoint within the Bill's text, by removing a duplicate reference or bringing the reader to a more specific area of the text. None of these changes the policy intent of the process. They are focused merely on optimising user experience.