Michael Kitt (Fianna Fail)

Many of us in the west have been fighting for the corridor for years. We have pursued the issue since 1982 with the help of Fr. Micheál MacGréil and the former Deputy and Senator, Martin Joe O'Toole. We met the Leader, Senator O'Rourke, when she was Minister and she gave us great support. Successive Ministers gave us the opportunity to leave the line as it was. On many occasions the line was scheduled to be pulled up, as the Leas-Chathaoirleach knows. It is encouraging that we have received dates for the completion of stages of the corridor. It will come to Athenry in 2008, to Tuam in 2011 and on to Claremorris in 2014. The Minister has given those definite dates. The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív, has also taken steps to preserve the section of the line from Claremorris to Collooney, to be done later this year. A very definite commitment has been made after a long campaign by the Western Inter-County Rail Committee, which had members from five counties in Connacht. The councillors in County Clare also came on board, as the line will go from Ennis to Sligo.

I welcome the Minister's comments about recognising the rights of recognised NGOs to access courts as provided for in the Aarhus Convention. This issue has been raised in the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and in particular the Sub-Committee on Development Co-Operation. In their concern for the environment, NGOs have raised these issues on many occasions.

The Bill will provide for a single approval for electricity transmission lines requiring an environmental impact statement. Electricity supply has always been a problem in rural Ireland. Every small town and village has had cases requiring three-phase electricity supply to try to allow a small industry to be established. I would like to see such supply made available. We are always battling the ESB on another issue. ESB Networks should be more sensitive to where transmission lines are located, especially when they come close to schools and houses. They should be located further away and the technology should exist to allow them to be placed underground. While some of the tidiest towns and villages are now improving the life of the community by placing power lines underground, this should have been done years ago. I believe the same could be done with transmission lines. Many fine new houses are being built even on the smallest roads, for example, in County Galway. Unfortunately they are often surrounded by overhead wires that should not be there. We need to consider better ways to supply electricity and I suggest underground cabling as used in many towns and villages.

While providing water and sewerage systems seems simple, this is not always the case. However, such systems are vital for sustainability in rural Ireland. I have written to the Minister on the issue of providing water to Gort and south Galway. Providing water to a town should be quite simple. However, with a regional scheme as required by the planners we must be aware of the problems that exist. It seemed that it would be simple to take water from Lough Cutra to supply an entire region of south Galway. Galway County Council had just started on the work, when the unfortunate landslide occurred in Derrybrien. That landslide created many environmental problems in the region. While those have now been addressed, we have yet to deal with issues such as water abstraction orders and the liability of flooding in the area, which is a clear concern of local farmers. Such matters, which are issues for the local authority, should also be issues for the planning board. While the cost, €16 million, has been known for many years, many other issues need to be taken into account when considering a water scheme for this region. The other option would be to try to link with Oranmore near Galway city, where the water is supplied from Tuam.

I am also pleased the Minister referred to ongoing developments regarding the metro, since we have obviously carried out a great deal of work on the DART, for example. The Luas system is an excellent advertisement for what can be done in Dublin city. The Government has spent large sums on those developments, and I believe that we are now investing ten times what we did between 1994 and 1997, when the last Government was in power.

Of course, we will soon have the opening of the Kinnegad-Enfield-Dublin motorway. There have been complaints in the House about the cost of tolls, and many speakers have talked as if there were no other option to come to Dublin. One mentioned four tolls from Galway city to Dublin, which is not true regarding the outer bypass in Galway. If one is talking about a toll on the M50, one is not heading for Dublin in the first place. There has been a great deal of misinformation regarding that development.

People in the west are very happy they have a motorway on part of the route, and I look forward to its ongoing development all the way to Galway city. If one travels through any county between Dublin and Galway, one will see the great work being carried out on the new road. The Loughrea bypass, to which I referred, is the start in County Galway. When we talk about such road works, we also emphasise to the Minister the need for further development. Galway County Council was very happy to receive funding for 2006. I have the figures before me, and although I shall not bore the House with them, there is a great deal of development of primary and secondary roads in the county, and I very much welcome that.

An Bord Pleanála has performed very well, given the substantial number of cases with which it now deals. At the end of 2005, I believe that the number of current cases was 2,063, and the percentage of cases being decided within the 18-week statutory limit stood at 78% for the year, with the average time taken to dispose of them being just 15 weeks. There has been a great improvement. Staff numbers were increased by 14 to cover the additional workload and the changing organisational requirements of the board. The Bill provides for an increase of ten staff, a very welcome development.

I welcome the Bill, and I am glad that Senator Bannon has expressed similar sentiments, although he was critical regarding other issues. When I read the EPA report on Ireland's environment, I saw that its stress was on greenhouse gases, the eutrophication of water, which we discussed last week, waste management, and integrated environmental planning. The conclusion is that the environment is a dynamic arena, and its problems are not amenable to quick or easy solutions. As one priority is addressed, another appears, something of which the Minister is very much aware, and I wish him well in his work. In particular, he has acted very quickly to deal with rogue developers. He promised that he would do so in the Dáil, something the Labour Party also proposed.