Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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A cynic might say, not that I am in any way cynical about this legislation, that by placing the responsibility, through the Schedules, on the applicant to design and manage the public participation process, there is an offloading of responsibility onto the applicant. There are certain merits in that in that they have to resource, manage and oversee it. It begs the question, however, when either the Minister in legacy cases or MARA in subsequent cases is taking a decision on the granting of the MAC or where the planning authority is taking a decision on the granting of a planning application, against what criteria do they assess if, let us call them the developer in this instance, has adhered to those requirements as set out in the Schedules as outlined by the Minister of State. How do they judge if that was adequate or not if it is not set out in the same way as other public participation processes?

That is the first thing. The second thing is that I welcome the Minister of State's specific namechecking of environmental NGOs and other stakeholders, but is there an expectation that the wider public will be involved? Here is the reason I say that. Before a planning application is put in on land, there is an earlier stage in the development process, what we call zoning, although I know it is not strictly comparable with this. Where a local authority is changing the zoning and matters come up for consideration through the development process, and there is some earlier consideration, it seems to me that while they are not analogous, there is some merit in having a wider public participation or consultation where a MAC is to be granted. If the Minister of State is saying that is what is outlined here, and there is a clear set of criteria against which a MAC applicant-planning applicant would be adjudged, that might go some way to assuage our concerns, although I am not sure how much it would do. It is about trying to ensure that a decision as important as the granting of a MAC has some public involvement.

We all have experience of this. Oftentimes, when an application has gone in, it is very late for people to impact or change that in terrestrial planning, in particular when one does not have the same level of expertise as an applicant or some professional bodies or environmental NGOs. The public in particular are often greatly disadvantaged and their ability to impact the planning process is weaker. Therefore, the earlier that participation is possible, the better. I am not looking to duplicate anything, but a MAC is a very considerable decision in and of itself, albeit not a grant of development. I am interested to hear the Minister of State's response to those questions, and depending on the answers I may well withdraw amendment No. 162.