Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It is, of course, better that one of these organisations would be able to get a declaration than not. Effectively, however, unless the party concerned is the landowner, has the consent of the landowner or is one of the organisations specified, such a party will now be shut out of the process. It may be the case that people could be in an NGO or have access or contacts that would enable them to undertake this type of action and participate in this way. If not, however, people will now completely shut out of the process. During the Second and Committee Stages of this Bill, I read out detailed examples from individuals who were able to successfully use this process to hold to account local authorities that were not doing their job in terms of enforcement. This was the only route they could go down. This is now something that this legislation will shut out.

It is already a weak and under-resourced process. In attempting to fix a problem around first-party rights here, someone in a neighbouring property, for example, could now be shut out altogether from this pursuing this route. This is the difficulty I have here. It is a rarely used route, but it can be used very effectively by people where a local authority is not doing its job. This process grants the ability to get the formal declaration and, if necessary, appeal the matter to An Bord Pleanála. It can be a useful mechanism. It can raise a certain level of standards. It is very regressive that this ability is being changed. I think our amendments in this regard should be accepted. Amendment No. 72 is better than nothing but it really does not address all the concerns here. The status quo would be better or, as we had suggested, some changes could be made to this provision that would address the concerns and the rationale put forward by the Minister.

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