Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise.

I am trying to meet the health needs of the residents as far as I can. The Deputies should not ask me to introduce something that takes away the meaning or text of EU Regulation 598/2014, because if I do not implement the directive in full and as it stands, I would not be fulfilling the requirements of our obligations to the EU. That has to happen; that is the way it has to be.

I have moved as far as I possibly can within the legal context in which I am allowed to have wriggle room to meet the requirements of the residents and indeed of the Opposition. That is done in good faith. As the Deputies know, there has been considerable toing and froing to accommodate people. We cannot accommodate them by actually breaking the regulation and we will not do that, but we have gone as far as we can in amendments Nos. 59, 78 and 79, I think, to meet those requirements.

I do not accept somehow I have taken the commercial role rather than the role of the residents; that is not the case at all. I have gone a long way - Deputy Coppinger should acknowledge this - in meeting the residents to understand what they have to say and to accommodate them. Every residents' association - perhaps bar one, but I am not sure if that is true - that has requested a meeting has been given a hearing by me. Their views have been conveyed to the DAA and anybody else involved specifically because I value their lifestyle. I value their right to have as little noise as possible and I respect what they stand for, their feelings and the stress this causes them.

We must also, however, implement the EU directive. There must not be an assumption that just because we are implementing an EU directive on noise we are somehow trying to be on one side or the other. We are trying to introduce a balanced regime and take a balanced approach. That includes the requirements of health.

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