Results 3,881-3,900 of 15,009 for speaker:Eoin Ó Broin

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I appreciate the huge volume of work the officials have done on this Bill. If only we all had a team of excellent officials, it would make our jobs easier. Surely, though, some of the work in this regard should be done prior to the proposed legislation coming to us. To me, this is a change that just seems so easy to make and that could have been discussed with the relevant office prior to...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I do not understand it but I can appreciate it.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: On a procedural point, when we did the grouping of amendments with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, on the transitional aspects of the proposed amendments, he read through the entire statement and then we had to go back over things. I think that approach actually took more time. It might be easier with some of these very big groupings for us just to go through amendments...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: The problem is that all these amendments, bar three, are the Minister of State's. What will happen is that he will speak to a very long list of amendments and we will then have to try to interrogate each of those different amendments with questions if we wish to clarify them. It certainly proved very difficult when we did the previous grouping with the Minister, grouping No. 2.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Okay, let us see how we get on.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I concur but I would say that it is not a small change. It is a change of factual accuracy in the sense that if we are defining "climate change adaptation and mitigation" only as measures to manage the impact of climate change, we are actually ignoring the crucial and more important requirement to mitigate the impact. It is actually quite important because otherwise we are not actually...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: There are a couple of practical considerations. If the Minister of State is not able to come to the meeting with an answer already prepared on such a simple matter, we are never going to make any progress when we get to much more complex and controversial issues. We could lose the opportunity to press amendments here and take the risk of deferring them to Report Stage, when we do not...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: The whole purpose of Committee Stage is that the Government tables amendments and we table amendments. We are all meant to do our homework in what limited time we have and then we are meant to come and make decisions. If every time we table an amendment the response from the Government side is that we must go and consult somebody, this is what the time between the publication of amendments...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Ultimately it is a matter for the Government because it controls the Business Committee.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: That is a 20% success rate so far. If we have this throughout the Bill, we are on the Minister of State's side.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Are you trying to convince the Minister of State to change his mind?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I have a significant concern about the definition outlined in amendment No. 11. When we considered the Maritime Jurisdiction Act, if people can remember that far back, we had quite lengthy discussions around the issues of using the term "maritime area" versus "maritime site", which are not the same. They have different implications, depending on their use. We also had quite lengthy...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: It does. The question, however, is that across amendments Nos. 11, 32 and 33, there is confusion between, or mixed use of, site versus area. Why is one term used in one part of the Bill and a different one used in another, which is also Deputy O'Callaghan's question? Why is the definition of a site not included with the definitions, or at the same point as area is defined?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I will make the same point. Why not just have a consistency of language in both sections? I ask the Minister of State to come back on the question of depth and height when it comes to "over or under". What is the scope of that and where is it defined? If not here, where else in other legislation?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: We are on our first date in relation to this Bill, so we will be lenient with the Minister of State. I get that these guys have been thrown in at the last minute, but we are only on amendment No. 11 or amendment No. 12 and the Minister of State is saying he is going to have to come back to us on a lot of the points we are raising. We want to be helpful, but we will end up replicating a lot...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I am not sure I can support the amendment as it is, but I am more than happy for the Minister of State to come back to us on Report Stage, if that is what he is recommending. I am minded not to support amendment No. 11 at this point.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Part of the problem is that the Minister of State seems to be defining "site" in a very geographically specific way-----

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: -----as opposed to it being a more generic term, which is my understanding of its original legislative meaning.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: If I could be so cheeky, the Minister of State could always withdraw the three amendments, clarify the matter and reintroduce them. It would save us having to oppose them. I offer that as a constructive suggestion. Specifically in relation to amendment No. 33, obviously this is a new text that is replacing the text in the existing legislation. I ask the Minister of State to confirm, on...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I am not so sure the Minister of State can say he is happy with it if he cannot actually explain what "over" and "under" mean, but I will leave that to him.