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

I will move on to some of the Minister of State’s other amendments. This is one of the sections of the Bill that got very little attention during pre-legislative scrutiny. It is also one of the most complex areas. It is not only about understanding what is in Irish law but also EU legislation, and a very considerable volume of ECJ case law. I struggle with this in a way that I do not with some other parts of the Bill.

The amendments and the section I want to discuss are the Minister’s amendments to sections 187 and 188. These are to clarify and change text but in some ways my questions relate as much to the sections as to the amendments because I presume the amendments do not change the substance of the text of the Bill and just clarify its language.

This might be a very basic question but “relevant plan” relates to the particular plan under question, anything under the national planning framework to development plan, to priority plan or co-ordinating area plan. This entire section and the subsequent sections, if I understand them correctly, seem to relate to wherein making the assessment of the relevant plan there is an absence of alternative solutions and there is “imperative reasons of overriding public interest”, which are set out in section 188 for the making of the plan and I presume that includes aspects of the plan, and “compensatory measures are proposed to ensure the adequate overall coherence within the Natura 2000” network. I presume the consequence of these sections, notwithstanding whatever would be in the assessment, is to allow the plan or the element of the plan to go ahead. For my benefit and the benefit of folks who are paying attention to this, what does “absence of alternative solutions” mean? When I look at “imperative reasons”, the first, “reasons relating to human health or public safety”, is quite clear and then there is “reasons that the development will have beneficial consequences of primary importance to the environment”. In the other area of work that the Minister of State is working on, the marine protected areas, and the debate we will have when we deal with that legislation around potential conflicts and trade-offs between, for example, more renewable energy versus potential impacts on marine biodiversity, those things, as set out in section 188(1)(b) are not always as clear cut. Then under section 188(1)(c), I am trying to understand in very plain English the kinds of compensatory measures because these are the bars against which the assessment, notwithstanding its content, may allow certain categories of plans or aspects of plans and subsequent development plans to proceed, notwithstanding what could be a very negative impact on the Natura 2000 site and biodiversity within it. I am trying to make sure that I fully understand these sections and I am using the Minister’s amendments as a way to get the Minister of State to explain it in a little more plain English, if that is possible.