Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I am pleased to return to this House with the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill, as amended by the Dáil. The Dáil amendments have been grouped into thematic areas and I propose to outline each group of amendments to the House. There are a significant number of amendments to the Bill. Some of them are substantial amendments but a number are technical amendments. I reassure Senators that the substantial amendments inserted into this Bill were flagged to this House at the time of the Bill's debate and are required to comply with EU law and to avoid substantial EU fines. Senators will be heartened to hear that a number of the concerns raised during the debate on the Bill in this House have been addressed by amendment in Dáil Éireann.

The first group of amendments to the principal Act are predominantly technical in nature. Amendment No. 1 inserts section 1A into the principal Act to provide a table listing all Community Acts that are given effect through the planning Acts, which is the new section 3 of the Bill. Amendment No. 2 amends section 2 of the principal Act to update the current definitions and to insert a certain number of new definitions through section 3 of the Bill.

On foot of consultation between officials of my Department and officials at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food since the Bill was passed by Seanad Éireann, amendment No. 3 was introduced to retain the exemption for the construction of forest roads from the planning consent system, as currently provided for under section 4 of the principal Act. The requirements of the environmental impact assessment directive with regard to private forest roads will now be fulfilled through a separate forest consent process as prescribed by EC regulations made by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. In response to the issue raised by the Labour Party, section 4(1)(i) of the Act has also been amended to provide that land reclamation or reclamation of estuarine marshes or callows under the Land Reclamation Act 1949 will no longer be exempt from planning permission. The Minister is also empowered to make regulations to ensure developments that are ordinarily exempted can be de-exempted within specific areas if necessary for the purposes of ensuring that any such development that could have a significant effect on a Natura 2000 site is screened for appropriate assessment and appropriately assessed if required. This amendment is required as part of Ireland's transposition of the habitats directive in section 4 of the Bill.

Amendment No. 4 is a consequential amendment to section 7 of the principal Act on foot of the new Part XA, substitute consent procedure, and the new Part XAB, appropriate assessment of plans and proposed developments, to ascertain whether, having regard to the habitats directive, there would be an adverse effect on the European site. Amendment No. 58 makes a further technical amendment to section 37 of the principal Act which deals with works affecting character of a protected structure or a proposed protected structure. This is in section 26 of the Bill. Amendments Nos. 59, 60, 65, 76 to 79, inclusive, 81, 93 to 95, inclusive, and 97 provide for technical amendments. Amendment No. 96 will not be commenced and will be repealed in due course as the required provision now stands part of a separate Act.