Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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I am on amendment No. 107. My wording might not be perfect on this, but I believe the Minister of State understands what I am trying to do here. We need to look at the blocking of the footpaths now. It is directly related to planning because the local authority has to grant licences under this Act.

I will move to Amendment No. 106. If my amendment is accepted the section will read "a person shall not erect, construct, place or maintain— [...] [this list of things] on, under, over or along a public road or on an existing pole or pathway installation, save in accordance with a licence granted by a planning authority under this section". I cannot remember what I was trying to do with this amendment. I will come back to that one.

Amendment No. 111 relates to section 12(7), which states "In considering an application for a licence under this section, a planning authority, shall have regard to—" various things, including "proper planning and sustainable development" as well as "the number and location of existing appliances, apparatuses or structures". I am interested in opportunities to share existing structures. I will give the example of a licensing application going in to put up a telephone mast. There is a perfectly good structure not too far away from it, but a previous planning condition was this structure was not to be shared. We need to look at the opportunity to share structures. We need to look at the opportunity to share street signage on poles as well. It seems we must put up a new pole for every single bit of information. I was driving down the N81 last night looking at this and every pole had another bit of information. I understand the requirement to give information to drivers and signage information, road safety information, etc., but there has to be a better opportunity to share existing poles and structures.

I think that is my four amendments in that group.