Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to agree with the comments made by Deputy Gould in his contribution. There is no doubt the planning system benefits and is geared towards people who can afford to go to court and who can afford to challenge decisions and that is wrong. It impacts on what a planning system should be which is for the value and good of every citizen in our State. Unfortunately, our courts and system is only available to the wealthy and the people who can produce money to challenge cases. What the Minister proposes in his Bill will make this worse. It will make it more the exclusive right of the wealthy and the courts will make decisions to set the limits on what they will pay out for those who win cases and get their costs awarded. That will mean people will face even bigger costs after court cases. That is wrong.

The reason planning applications end up in court is that there is a legal problem with the implementation by An Bord Pleanála, the council and so on because the judicial review is actually a review of the legality of the case and the procedures used and not on the decision itself. Therefore, if the planning Act was sufficiently robust and An Bord Pleanála and the county councils applied the law as it stands, then there would be no need for judicial reviews. That is the problem we see across the board.

I have some amendments on LNG, and I will say something about it now. Hopefully, we will get as far as the amendments and I can speak to them when they come up. What the Minister is including in the Bill on LNG flies in the face of all Government policy of the last few years. The High Court dismissed a Government moratorium on LNG. Government policy has moved on from that. In last November’s energy security package, the Government went further than the 2021 moratorium and decided that it saw no role for commercial LNG terminals in Ireland at any time in the future. While that decision opened the door for State-controlled LNG as an option for temporary emergency measures, it did so subject to further research. However, the Government is pushing through these amendments at the last minute and without proper debate. It is coming from the Seanad and being brought in here where we are to have a truncated debate. That is why people are jumping in at the early stages. It is because we know that we probably will not get through all the amendments and actually debate them.

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