Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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I welcome everybody to the meeting. We are here to continue our Committee Stage deliberations on the Planning and Development Bill 2023. I take the opportunity to welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, and to congratulate him on his appointment. I wish him the very best of luck with that.

Before we finished last week, I gave a rough estimate of how many amendments we have discussed and the progress we have been making. The rate of progress has been quite good. I hope we can continue in that vein. We have a good deal of voting coming up. I urge members to attend and be present for votes. If they are not present, it takes a long time to get through votes, notwithstanding the right of any member to call a vote. I do not want to stymie the latter in any way. We have been working quite collegiately and well. Many of the points that have been raised have been taken on board and we have seen some really good progress and improvements as we have gone along.

Last week, we finished with a grouping of amendments starting with amendment No. 774. Amendment No. 774 is in my name. I cannot move that from the Chair. Amendments Nos. 1043 and 1144 are Deputy Ó Broin's name. Perhaps the Deputy will start with those ones if that is okay. I am sorry to disrupt the flow that the Deputy was intending but if he discusses his amendments, I can leave the Chair and speak to mine. If amendments Nos. 1043 and 1044 are individual or if they are related in some way, I will leave it up to the Deputy as to how he wants to proceed with them. Is that agreed? Agreed.