Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Of course I am embarrassed by this. I am acutely embarrassed by this because the Deputy is correct, she has been asking for 16 months. She has probably been asking this question since before I came into office. The answer I give to her is this - if it is with the lawyers, it is with the lawyers. As the Deputy can see from the letter which came back, I am harassing the Attorney General to produce an answer. I cannot take precipitative measures when the Attorney General is making a decision of this importance. It is very important that we get this right for the sake of the runway, for the sake of the residents to which the Deputy has referred, and for the sake of the nation. Whereas it might seem to be a difficult legal problem delaying everything, if we get this wrong we will be in an awful lot of trouble. The answer is that we are still looking at a statutory instrument. The original legal advice of the Attorney General was that the designation of the competent authority should be done using secondary legislation and that is what we are endeavouring to do.

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