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

I am sorry; that was my first question. The second question is an entirely different matter but is related to this section of the Bill. As I said to the Chair yesterday, this relates in many ways to Part 5 as a whole, and not just this section. I will just come in on it once. This section of the Bill is in Part 5, which pertains to developments at Dublin Airport. There have been issues recently. I am not talking about planning applications or anything live or anything like that. There have been issues around PFAS chemicals, which are known as forever chemicals and can be related to health matters. A report was filed by the EPA with the European Chemicals Agency showing that despite assurances that had been given that there was no contamination of water with these PFAS chemicals, in fact there is contamination of water. As the Minister will know, the Santry, Mayne and Sluice rivers all drain from Dublin Airport. The Santry River enters into the Dublin Bay biosphere at the Bull Island nature reserve. The Mayne and Sluice rivers enter into the Baldoyle Estuary nature reserve. I will use the Baldoyle Estuary as an example. It is part of a UNESCO biosphere reserve. It is part of the Dublin Bay wetlands complex. It is a special protection area, SPA, and special area of conservation. It is considered of international importance as a wintering area for brent geese. There are wading birds including black-tailed godwits, redshanks and curlews there. When the tide comes in, there can be prey for great crested grebe and red-breasted merganser.

It is very important, in terms of its nature function, to have water going in there that is contaminated with chemicals related to development. Activity at Dublin Airport shows some of the problems in the planning system around this, and shows a planning failure with regard to assessing cumulative and indirect impacts of development. Is this dealt with in this part of the Bill, or is it dealt with in the Bill at all?