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

Amendments Nos. 633 and 693 seek to delete the requirement for a person to be eligible to apply for permission under sections 87 and 114 to seek a pre-application consultation. This is an important provision that ensures the most efficient use of planning authority or commission resources. Without it, someone who is not the owner or who does not have the consent of the owner could seek a pre-application consultation, on a speculative basis, in respect of land in which that person has no interest. This is not the purpose for which planning authority or commission resources should be used. Therefore, I cannot accept the amendments.

I draw the Deputy's attention to section 82(1)(d). It provides that a person shall be eligible to make an application if he or she "has a power conferred by statute to acquire land compulsorily for the purposes of the development concerned whether or not any preconditions to the exercise of that power have been satisfied". Where somebody has the power to compulsorily purchase land, he or she may or may not exercise that power. Such an applicant may put in a planning application on that basis.