Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 15 February 2024

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed)

Photo of Darragh O'BrienDarragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The directives were added to the Planning and Development Act 2000 retrospectively. They were only added to that legislation in 2010 because many of the directives came post the passing of the Bill in 1999, moving into 2000. Those directives are now in place and have been incorporated right the way through this legislation. The very clear advice from the Attorney General's Office was that as they were incorporated it would not be appropriate to provide that general provision in a tabular format. As I said, that would give the impression the Bill as a whole was giving the directive effect without identifying where the provisions are. I have given two specific examples of how this will work. All the directives that are relevant are within the Bill. They are part of the legislation itself. We are abiding very strictly by the legal and drafting advice we got. That table in the 2000 Act was added retrospectively to it because the directives were passed post that date.