Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

In the context of the amendments from the Minister, we can see where he is coming from. In respect of anyone who has applied for or obtained planning permission and who is affected by a JR and the delays relating thereto, there can be a major impact in the context of their trying to deliver the project. Regarding time delays relating to the JR, I can understand wanting to have the clock stopped on planning permissions. My only concerns around this are long-duration planning permissions and the impact there could be of stopping the clock and then adding in the time. Let us say there is a project where there has been an environmental assessment, habitats and species have been looked at, and there has been survey data. All that work is important. If this is a larger project with longer duration permission and the stopping of the clock of the JR is added to that, which could be a few more years, it could mean a scenario where by the time something is actually built, the data and the surveys that the granted permission were based on could be out of date. This can have real effects. When it comes to habitats, species and our environment, things do not always stand still. An environmental survey or data might say there is a protected species at a particular location in a particular habitat. If it is getting built out eight or ten years later, things on the ground in that habitat may have changed significantly. There could be growth in populations, or the opposite, and there could be shifts in where that particular species is living. All these things are important. There is no point having a planning permission based on environmental data that are out of date. Because these can go on for years while you are protecting a particular area, habitat or species, and because things have changed slightly, you may be protecting the wrong area or whatever it is. I have a concern around these longer permissions and how much this could add to it, how out of date developments could be and how out of date the data on which a development is based could be. I understand and appreciate what the Minister seeks to do. Is there any criteria, regulation or counter-balancing around that so we do not end up with situations of things being developed out in a well-intentioned way based on out-of-date data? It could create an expense for the developer but may not actually have the outcome sought or achieved in the permission granted.