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

The truth always comes out in these matters. To put the Minister of State and the Minister on notice, I have already submitted detailed parliamentary questions and freedom of information requests to ensure that the full facts of this amendment come into the public domain. I appreciate this is not a matter that the Minister of State has been directly involved in but he is answering questions for the line Minister. It is not credible for this committee to be told that an amendment with wording so specifically related to an individual planning decision. That is not my opinion; it is the opinion of the Attorney General in his advice to Government on 2 February, with such specific language similarities, did not arise out of a discussion about that planning decision. Equally, this is not something that industry organisations lobbied this committee for. They made detailed submissions recently and this is not in it. It is hard to accept that there was not lobbying. That may be the truth and. Ultimately, when we get replies to the freedom of information requests and parliamentary questions, we will find out.

I will make the point again that what the Attorney General wrote in his letter to Government flatly contradicts the testimony of the Minister to this committee only weeks ago. That is deeply unsatisfactory. We have had a history in previous eras of proximity of developers to some politicians having a corrosive impact on our planning system. I am not in any way suggesting that is currently the case, and I want to be clear about that, but perception is as important as reality.

There is now a perception out there that the proximity is uncomfortably close. It is incumbent on the Minister of State and indeed on the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, when he gets the opportunity, to address this matter because in my view, the short statement the Minister of State has read out does not address the concerns I have raised here today.