Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

I am not convinced it will solve the problem because although many things are regulated when people make a planning application they often end up getting permission. It will not stop every off-licence so which ones will be stopped and how many?

Kildare is an area with significant wetlands. I have a difficulty with what I perceive to be a reactive change rather than a proactive change, in that the regulation appears to be designed to avoid a fine rather than being based on a definite idea about how wetlands should develop. The one organisation that has had a positive role in getting us to value our bogs is the European Commission. I would hate to think that what we were trying to do is more or less to get around a sanction it is trying to impose for a very good reason. I am concerned about what will be the result of this. Too often we have seen situations where the likes of Bord na Móna has applied for cutaway bogs to be used as landfills. It appears that the only value put on wetlands is an economic one, rather than for their value as a distinctive habitat, from a tourism point of view or simply because they have existed for centuries before any of us arrived.

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