Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleague for sharing his time with me. I had not intended to speak on this, but when the Whip, the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, read out the amendments, it alerted me to the Lough Corrib Navigation Trustees. For my sins I spent ten years of my life on that august body, which theoretically did a brilliant job. It was set up with legislation in the middle of the 19th century, and under its remit come the Claddagh Basin, the Eglinton Canal and the navigation markers on the Corrib. The trustees do that job very well.

I echo the concerns of the previous speakers about putting forward so many amendments that do not fit with this Bill. I am not on the committee but I share their concerns and, as my colleague, Deputy Pringle, said, we have had any amount of time for statements. We are supposed to be legislators - the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste keep telling us we are legislators - yet all the time has been used for statements and not for legislation as important as this.

As regards this instruction, I was trying to listen to the Minister of State's opening speech but there is no copy of it, unfortunately, and the phone rang and I missed why this part was necessary. From looking at it briefly, it seems the Minister of State is seeking to reinstate powers that were inadvertently removed through legislation in 2009. I did not catch the name of the legislation. I am not sure whether it was the conveyancing Act or something else. That was an unintended consequence, was it not, at that time? Clearly, then, there was a message here and unintended consequences that rendered this powerless, and now the Minister of State is trying to give the power back to it. The power he is seeking to give back to it is extremely important, namely, that they will be able to carry out works on a legal basis, to borrow, to enter land if necessary and so on, or delegate the power if necessary. On the face of it, it looks good. What I am missing is the context. The body was independent but the secretary was also the director of planning on the city council - one and the same - which caused great difficulty because when we were watching unauthorised developments abutting the land of the Corrib navigation trustees, that secretary wrote to himself as the director of planning or whatever title he had. I am not personalising this. What I am trying to show the Minister of State is that he was secretary of the trustees and we were asking him to highlight unauthorised development and he wrote to himself in the capacity as director of planning in the local authority. We sorted that out, but they were the battles we had as trustees to keep that body independent and hold the Claddagh Basin, the Eglinton Canal and all up the piers and the navigation markers in trust for the people of Galway. We managed that. Twice it came to a casting vote. Twice I had the privilege of using my casting vote. I can say it was a privilege now but at the time it was anything but a privilege. It was painful. The same letter starts each word, but it was painful to stay and try to keep that property in trust.

Therefore, my paranoia, for want of a better word, was awoken when I saw this. I would like context to it. I would like a copy of the Minister of State's speech to see where this is. I urge caution. This was an unintended consequence of previous legislation, yet we have a raft of amendments here being pushed through in this manner. It is simply unacceptable.

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