Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Due to the drafting and construction of section 28 with the two separate provisions, it is not possible to specifically commence the second provision without also commencing the first. That is the mistake that is there, I suppose, in legislation. It was always the intention to commence them separately in a staggered way but because of how they were originally drafted in the Bill and then enacted, we could not do that.

By taking section 28(2) out now, we can now commence the second part now on completion of the Bill and signature by the President. We can then commence the first part of section 28 later in the year as was always the original intention. The difficulty here is that we are drawing a connection between the first part and the second part of section 28 when essentially there is not one. The amended section 28(2) will allow us to provide this technical extension where an EIA was not previously needed for a minimum of 20 builds or more. Of course, there are certain conditions regarding when the application can be made and how long it might last.

As the Deputy has said, section 28 is already enacted; it just has not been commenced and we cannot just commence that second part. It was always the intention to do them separately when it was first brought in. However, it could not be done because of the technical construction of section 28. This is very much a technical change.

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