Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

No one is saying there should not be regulation, including the DAA, which accepts regulation. As has been said, there is an urgency in this regard. This is precisely a situation where we can get things badly wrong. We are appalling at building institutions that are coherent. We have fragmentation and conflicts of interest all over the place. The Minister knows coherent regulation is critical and he knows that separation and independence are critical for good regulation.

It is not a question of doing something just to get something done or to have it in place because there is a timeline issue. It is important to get this right. There is no doubt there is a conflict, and we can see that conflict before anything is even adjudicated upon. I have commented on the issue of these Chinese walls in other regulation formats. There is this idea that people do not go to coffee together and have a chat, or that things do not come up in conversation. We might have one part of a local authority dealing, for example, with a planning application and, on the other side, dealing with an area where a regulation has to be applied to the same broad range of issues. To be honest, for most of us the jaw dropped when we heard there would not be a problem in regard to the local authority being the one to deal with regulation in this area.

The Minister knows the importance of proper regulation and I cannot believe it would not have jumped out that this was going to be a problem. We are united in our opposition. I hope there is a way of dealing with this and that the Minister will listen. This is not going to work and it is not good regulation. Votes will be called on this and I will support the amendments. The Minister might reflect on whether there is another way to do this and decide that the CAR is the optimum way to go. I do not believe the local authority is appropriate or even that it is in the interests of the local authority to be the regulator.

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