Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State made the point that it is not believed that mineral extraction and mining will happen in the near future until the data are there and until we know more. That is very vague. Maybe I am picking the Minister of State up wrong and he can clarify this for me, and I hope he can, but putting something in the Bill to deal with something that might happen down the road - it may be a decade or years away; we do not know - seems to me very loose and very open. Deputy Boyd Barrett made a point about developers coming in and picking sites. They can do that with anything in planning at the moment because there is nothing there to stop them. To propose that we will be that open in respect of minerals, mineral extraction and mining is not right.

Perhaps the Minister of State could clarify it for me. That is what I took from his last contribution.

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