Pat Gallagher (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

This is a technical amendment to facilitate the smooth operation of the process for serving notices. As previously worded, a notice may only be served by one of the methods provided for in section 19(1), paragraphs (a) to (f). This restriction could conflict with the proviso in paragraph (f) which requires a notice to be served by supplementary means to verify service of a notice by facsimile or e-mail under that paragraph. The effect of the amendment will be to leave it to the discretion of the issuing authority whether to issue a notice by more than one method, subject to the requirement in paragraph (f) to do so where facsimile or e-mail is involved. Of course, many will not have facsimile or e-mail and, therefore, to tie a local authority to any one means would be wrong. The intention is to give discretion to the authority to serve the notice as it sees fit.