Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I expect that the Minister will confront a few angry public meetings on this issue in his own county. That is all in front of him, but what I want to nail here is the bit of political cleverality, to coin a phrase, that is being engaged in by the Minister to deflect the flak that will inevitably arise from this matter.

Two issues have been used to dress this up and make it look like it we are dealing with some wider amendment of the planning regulations. The first is to do with off-licences and I do not have any disagreement with the Minister's intent. Clearly where a shop selling sweets and newspapers is converting to an off-licence, it should be required to apply for a change of use permission. However, the situation is not always as clear-cut as that example and the Minister has left it ambiguous.

The new off-licence arrangements are very often in conjunction with an other activity which takes place in the shop. Typically, a filling station builds a new 24-hour shop, part of which sells alcohol. It is not entirely clear and I am not entirely clear in my mind whether it will be necessary for those who have already done so to apply for retention. I am not clear as to where the distinction lies between what the Minister describes as wine being sold from a fridge and part of a shop being used for the sale of alcohol and neither is it clear which activity will require planning permission. I am not clear if there is a distinction between the sale of wine and the sale of beers. Is the sale of beer from a fridge exempted from planning permission whereas the sale of beer outside a fridge requires planning permission? It is a pity the House did not have more time to tease out these areas of ambiguity.

I refer to the definition of "shop" in the motion. The sale of hot food is also being excluded. I am a little puzzled at this provision. Many shops sell hot food nowadays, in particular, filling station shops with a takeaway hot food counter. Will separate planning permission be required for the hot food arrangement? Some newer supermarkets also sell hot food. Will they be required to apply for a separate planning permission? I note this is listed in the definition of what is being exempted from the definition of a shop.

The second area turfed in, so to speak, with the peat extraction issue which is the reason for this motion, is the Aarhus Convention. What is delaying the implementation of the convention and why is only a portion of it being given effect in these regulations, particularly when the convention was to have been implemented last weekend? Why is the entire convention not being implemented? We had an exchange in the House yesterday about the Minister's planned infrastructural legislation. Why is the thrust of that proposal moving away from the Aarhus Convention? The convention is partly about making information on environmental matters available to the public but it is also concerned with the right of the public to participate in environmental decision-making from an early stage. The public does not have the right to be involved at an early stage in respect of major infrastructural projects in particular. In the case of the third pillar which is the right to challenge in a court of law public decisions made with regard either to information or public consultation, the thrust of the proposed legislation is away from the Aarhus Convention. I ask the Minister to address two questions. Why is only a part of the Aarhus Convention being implemented? Why does Ireland appear to drift away from the principles enshrined in it?

This motion is to amend the planning regulations and to address the area of exempted development. I am surprised the Minister did not take the opportunity to address the problems associated with the erection of mobile telephone masts and antennae. The Minister must be aware that considerable problems have arisen in many parts of the country with regard to the erection of masts and antennae on public property and claims being made that they are exempted development. Bodies such as CIE or ESB have erected them on their sites and claim exemptions because they are related in some way to their activities or are part of a shared facility for some other purpose. This is an issue that has caused considerable problems. If this motion is concerned with changing the regulations on exempted developments, I am surprised the Minister did not take the opportunity to deal with this issue. The answer to that question is connected to my first point about this motion.

This motion is about slipping through the dramatic change in peat extraction and turf cutting under the guise that this is some innocuous, technical change in planning regulations. When those members of the public who will be affected become aware of it, the Minister and his colleagues will then blame it all on the Green Party.

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