Ms Phoebe Duvall:

This section is concerned with what is currently section 37(4) of the Planning and Development Act 2000. It refers to the right of appeal of NGOs, especially when an EIA should have been done for an application but was not. The proposed section 97 seeks to apply the same criteria as some of those we just discussed concerning judicial review in respect of getting leave to take an appeal. These would be around an organisation's incorporation, a ten-member minimum and having to get a resolution of members in this regard. Under this proposed section, all this would have to be done within the four-week appeal window. To give the Deputy a practical example of what this would look like for An Taisce, as a prescribed group which undertakes appeals, to get a resolution of our members to take an appeal under this section we would need to propose an extraordinary general meeting, EGM. As Ms Uí Bhroin mentioned, this takes 21 days, plus one day on either end of the process. Effectively, then, this makes it impossible to get such an appeal submitted within that four-week window. By the time we get a planning decision, which takes a couple of days after it is made by the local authority, prepare a case for taking an appeal to present to our members, get that resolution and then get the appeal in, these requirements effectively make it impossible to be able to do this. We do, therefore, have strong concerns about this section of the legislation.