Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 15 June 2021

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed)

Photo of Darragh O'BrienDarragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I move amendment No. 142:

In page 35, to delete line 16.

My amendment relates to section 49, which provides that relevant public bodies must co-operate with the agency on its functions relating to the relevant public land of that particular body. My amendment removes the reference to "a member of a relevant public body;" from section 49(1) as it has been brought to my attention that the inclusion of this provision would include board members of State bodies or the elected members of local authorities like councillors. It was genuinely not the intention of this legislation to provide for this. I am happy to amend that today to provide that it is only the staff of the relevant public bodies who will be obliged to co-operate and assist the LDA, and rightly so. Members of the relevant public bodies - I am thinking of councillors here - will have no direct role. In particular, it had not been intended that local authority members would have been included in this provision given their separate constitutional and non-executive role as members of local authorities.