Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I accept it is a slightly tricky area. I cannot remember every single detail of the case to which I refer so I will not go through it specifically but, roughly speaking, let us say there is a proposal on a road configuration that is going to make a two-way system into a one-way system and perhaps add a cycle path and there is a public consultation on that but the proposal never mentions the possibility at all of eliminating parking for a whole row of houses. That is not in the proposal, which is for a road configuration to turn a two-way system into a one-way system and to have a cycle path. If there is a public consultation the amendment, in an attempt to balance between various competing views among the public on how to do this, results in a proposal to resolve the dilemma whereby people will lose their parking, although it was never in the original proposal, and there is nothing they can do about it. The people impacted by this development have never had a chance to give their opinion on what is being done. They have never had any opportunity, so it is not as if they are looking for a second bite of the cherry, they are looking for a first bite of the cherry because there is now a development that is going to be done, which will impact on them but on which they have never had any say at all, such is the substantial degree of the change from the original proposal.

I take the Minister's point on how we strike the threshold, but it cannot be right that one could have a substantial development taking place that impacts on people or the environment and they have had no right whatsoever to have any say on it at all. I appreciate that the Minister has heard the point but I honestly think it has to be addressed.