Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am very disappointed the Minister of State is not accepting amendment No. 1, in the name of Deputy Ó Broin. It is because the Government essentially wants the flexibility to ram through big infrastructural projects without having them properly screened.

I would like clarity from the officials because they said there are not 15 cases. A document by environmental consultants in Waterford states:

There are currently 15 cases being taken against Ireland. Of these 5 could be considered to be at Stage Two. These are;- Failure to regulate septic tanks [...].

- Failure to ensure that Environmental Impact Assessments are carried out on various agriculture and fish farming projects.

- Failure to implement the Birds Directive with respect to the designation of SPAs [...].

- Failure to implement the Habitats Directive.

- Failure to require EIAs for particular projects and the facilitation of Planning Retentions which are seen as undermining the effectiveness of the EIA Directive.

I am sure that, in making the latter point, the consultants are referring to the famous substitute consent.

I have to hand a letter from the Director-General for Energy of the European Commission, Dominique Ristori. It is dated 2015 so perhaps there is an update on it. It states our national renewable energy action plan is not compliant with the Aarhus Convention, according to the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee. This relates to many of these big infrastructural renewable energy projects. We saw what happened in Derrybrien. There was supposed to be legislative change to do something about that. The question is whether there was, but the signs are there was not.

Interestingly, in the case we had in Dún Laoghaire, An Bord Pleanála allowed a development in Dún Laoghaire Harbour and when we engaged in a judicial review against that decision, it pulled out of the case. It withdrew the case. Even An Bord Pleanála was failing in its full application of the environmental impact assessment. When faced with a judicial review, it had to pull out. That tells one a lot.

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