Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I am not saying that we are there, but the position is much better than it was. I am putting the House on notice that this Government intends to bring forward legislation in respect of the delivery of critical infrastructure in an emergency manner. I remind people at home that we did that before. We did it in relation to Brexit in the context of port infrastructure. We did it in Rosslare and at Dublin Port. We certainly did it for temporary gas storage. It can be done, and we need to do it. Not everything can be classed as critical infrastructure, but there are major projects, such as those the Deputy referenced, that clearly are critical in nature. We will bring proposals to Government before the end of the year. We will bring proposals to leaders by the end of this month as well, because we need to make sure that where there are projects that are of national significance and there is common good, we speed up delivery.

I have significant concerns about the use of judicial reviews and environmental law. I cannot understand environmental law being used to slow down the delivery of wastewater treatment plants. Wastewater treatment plants improve our environment. In Ireland and in Europe, there is overregulation in this regard. We need to make sure there is not a brass plating or a gold plating of regulation in this country. We also need to ensure that people cannot have an each-way bet with judicial reviews. The Deputy can expect changes from Government in that regard.

Uisce Éireann has made progress. It ran a successful public relations campaign in the context of looking for significant additional funding. I have said this directly to it. We provided that funding on the proviso that there will be a link between it and housing supply. Uisce Éireann cannot be the answer to everything. It has to empower developers involved in small or reasonably small developments in rural and regional areas to put infrastructure in place once it is to the Uisce Éireann standard. That has now been agreed and it will be in place by February.

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