Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 7, lines 19 to 21, to delete all words from and including “to” in line 19, down to and including “necessity” in line 21.

In this section, following the reference to the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015, the words "to the extent that they consider practicable, taking particular account of the said exceptional circumstances and urgent and compelling necessity" are added. Already, this Bill is giving a significant amount of leeway and power to the Minister and this is pushing it a bit, if the Minister does not mind me saying so. What is happening is the Green Party and the Government are tearing up the Planning and Development Act and gutting the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act by trying to bring in this clause. We want to see some constraints, even if they are nominal, to have regard to certain things that are effectively being cast aside in the rush to get these gas-fired generation plants through to keep the data centres humming.

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