Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I thank the Minister of State for his presence in the House. At the outset, I would like to address the way in which the House orders and does its business. The legislation was drafted about this time last year in response to a particular fiasco that had developed. It has taken 12 months to reach the floor of the House, which says a lot about the way we do our business. The legislation was proposed to deal with a matter which was pertinent at that time. Since the event has now passed, the Bill could be seen as somewhat irrelevant. Nonetheless, it is still important that we address the matter.

The Minister of State will recall the cancellation of the five Garth Brooks concerts in Croke Park as the result of a decision by Dublin City Council not to grant a licence for three additional concerts. The decision impacted greatly on the 400,000 people who had purchased tickets to attend the event. It also impacted on Ireland's tourism product, as 70,000 tickets had been sold outside the State and people were due to travel from many different jurisdictions across Europe, North America and further afield to attend what they believed would be a spectacular event. They had booked hotels and paid for their tickets. In my view, the decision by the council had a very damaging impact on Ireland's reputation as a tourism and event destination.

The residents rightly raised concerns about the potential impact of the concerts on their lives. The fiasco revealed a lack of certainty in the legislation. I do not believe the legislation as it currently stands adequately addresses all the potential concerns in respect of outdoor events of this nature. Nor do I believe that the proposals that the Government has brought forward adequately address the problem.

The Minister, Deputy Kelly, assured us at the time that he would begin a process of consultation with all stakeholders, community leaders, event promoters, venue owners, etc., to bring forward a set of proposals to ensure something like this could never happen again. It seems to me that the guidelines announced by him and the Minister of State, Deputy Coffey, in the last couple of days are a hastily put-together response in the knowledge that this Bill, published last year, would be discussed in the House today. The changes in regulation are really all based on a pre-consultation discussion between the promoter and the relevant local authority. It is possible to study the transcripts of the meetings of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport.

When the interested parties came before us and gave their evidence, it was clear a number of pre-application consultations had taken place between Aiken Promotions, Dublin City Council and Croke Park. The representatives of Croke Park, Aiken Promotions and Dublin City Council accepted the planning authority had indicated to the promoter and venue owner that five concerts would be possible. The Minister of State knows from a planning point of view that pre-consultation and pre-planning meetings are usually careful in their deliberations, because until such time as the entire application is lodged and the process complete it is not a certainty. A pre-consultation prior to the lodging of an application will not give certainty to the promoter, the ticket purchaser or the venue owner. What the Government has done is just tinkering around the edges. No effort has been made to put in place a comprehensive plan for the licensing of outdoor events.

My Bill, in the absence of an appropriate framework for licensing outdoor events which would provide certainty for all concerned, sought to give the Minister powers effectively to provide a licence. The Bill is about conferring powers on the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to grant a licence for events in exceptional circumstances. The Bill states:

Where a licence has been refused under section 231 by a local authority or where a local authority has granted a licence subject to conditions, the Minister may, if he deems it appropriate and believes the event is of national and cultural importance, review the decision of the local authority and may grant a licence or remove conditions imposed by the local authority provided that—(a) the Minister notifies persons and bodies which must be consulted in relation to a licence that he is reviewing the local authority’s decision,

(b) the Minister gives the persons and bodies which must be consulted in relation to the grant of a licence 7 days within which to make submissions.

The Minister would make a decision based on the national or international importance of the event and its considerable benefit to the State.

I am still at a loss as to why the Government has not put in place the appropriate legislative framework. The Garth Brooks fiasco to which this legislation sought to respond could easily happen again under the changes the Government is making. If a promoter were to enter into a discussion through a pre-consultation process with a local authority and receive the same assurances or same type of tacit support or acceptance of the proposal as was given to Aiken Promotions and Croke Park by Dublin City Council at the time we could still end up in the same situation, whereby four weeks prior to the event taking place permission for the licence could ultimately be refused, creating exactly the same scenario of which we are aware.

The period of time for lodging an application has been extended from ten weeks to 13 weeks. I remind the Minister of State with regard to the Garth Brooks event that Aiken Promotions submitted the licence application 14 weeks prior to the date of the first concert. The Minister of State knows the impact of the decisions taken then were economically assessed to have cost the city and the region around Dublin approximately €50 million in lost revenue due to the cancellation of these events. Unfortunately, in my view the proposals the Government has brought forward this week will in no way prevent this happening again and give no certainty whatsoever.

The regulations do not provide for an appeals mechanism, despite an attempt by the Department to suggest otherwise. There is no independent review of event licensing decisions which will take into account the impact of the decisions made locally and in the wider community. The Government now suggests that a decision by a local authority to grant or not a licence four weeks prior to an event allows for the normal statutory process of a judicial review. We all accept a judicial review has no real powers in this regard and it does not give any further assistance or help to those who either promote such an event or assist the venue holders in offering their services. The new regulations announced by the Government will in no way resolve the issue.

In future, event promoters will not be allowed to sell tickets before consulting local authorities. This is pre-consultation. If they have a conversation and there is tacit acceptance by the local authority the event should go ahead, they can go ahead and sell the tickets which they must do to ensure a demand for them in the first instance. This still gets us back to where we were at the outset.

In attempting to find a resolution it was my expectation the Department would have drafted legislation to ensure certainty about each particular venue in the State. Without requiring planning permission, Croke Park can host three major events in a year, as is the case with the Aviva Stadium, but none of the other potential locations in the country has access to this facility. I would have thought the best way to resolve this and ensure such an event never happens again would be to draw up a framework by which venues could apply for the issuance of a licence in perpetuity detailing a number of events per year. This happens in other countries. Thomond Park in Limerick, Nolan Park or another stadium as part of an ongoing process could apply for and be granted a set number of events of particular size and scale on an annual basis and have this in perpetuity. If this were in place and was part of the solution we would go a long way towards resolving the problem.

Promoters have a particular difficulty with the licensing regime as it exists because they are trying to attract international acts and compete with other countries. They also compete with other events taking place in these stadia. It is a difficult challenge for them to attract these acts which are of significant benefit to the State in terms of economic activity and attracting tourism, and unfortunately the proposals brought forward by the Minister of State will not resolve or give any certainty to those people attempting to develop this business.

The proposals the Minister of State has brought forward do not resolve the issue. They give more lead time and perhaps assist through the consultation process, but we still need a detailed appeals mechanism. On this basis will the Minister of State give consideration to accepting the Bill I published almost a year ago, and allow the Department and the Minister to have powers in special circumstances to overturn a decision by a local authority in the interests of the economic activity of the region and the State in general?

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