Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

It is where the Minister is requiring quarries to apply for substitute consent to An Bord Pleanála when their extracted area is over 3.5 hectares. Some of these small quarries' extracted areas are already over 3.5 hectares if one takes into account their roads and through-ways. On this ruling, can the Minister of State clarify if the Department will be adding the roads and the through-ways as part of the extracted area?

Second, by enforcing this measure in this legislation, the Minister will be imposing considerable professional fees on very small businesses. Many of these quarries employ five to six persons. It has been assessed by two of the quarries that have come to me that this will cost them a minimum of €40,000 in professional fees for services such as those of a hydrologist, a planner, an engineer and whoever is needed to prepare the documents. I am strongly making the case that this is far too harsh. This is not about irresponsible planning. This is about being reasonable. It is far too harsh in that it will affect livelihoods in a detrimental way and affect job retention.