Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

The officials to my right are from my Department and another is from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government because of the planning implications. It is not a mystery that my Department would want to ensure the Bill's passage through the House when other Ministers are unavailable. The Bill is the Compulsory Purchase Orders (Extension of Time Limits) Bill. As Deputy Fahey stated, it started as an amendment to the Planning and Development Act.

I apologise for not doing so earlier, but I would like to take the opportunity to wish Deputies Costello and Coveney well in their positions as their parties' transport spokesmen. As is customary, the Department of Transport will offer them every co-operation in terms of briefings and so on. They need only ask, as we try to be as open as possible on all of these matters.

I will not repeat Deputy Fahey's comments, but I agree with them regarding this Bill. The planning and development legislation was slow in passing through the House due to the large number of amendments and, as we know, the compulsory purchase order, CPO, issue became crucial and needed to be addressed before midnight. We undertook to address the matter in a separate Bill. I have been asked whether this Bill will be repealed or what procedure will be used. My understanding is that the Bill will be stand-alone legislation. The advice to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is that it should allow the section in the planning and development Bill to remain as is, but not to commence it, and then to repeal it following the planning and foreshore Bill. This is the procedure to be adopted.

Deputy Coveney asked whether the Attorney General had been consulted and whether passing this legislation would be appropriate with a case before the courts. This Bill went through the Attorney General's office, as must all legislation, and we are taking his advice. The Bill is not designed to influence anything. The Deputy raised a valid point about whether we were trying to influence a court decision, but the answer is that we are not. The court will take its own decision. As all contributors to the debate have accepted, we want to be in a position to move immediately when the court case has been decided and not lose a further 12 months.

Despite the gloom of Deputy McCormack, who takes a pessimistic view of everything most of the time, I hope he can be more optimistic about this Bill. I have committed to the project for its own sake-----

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