Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I was responding to the specific question I was asked in respect of the framework. In terms of myself and my responsibilities and my colleague, the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Kelly, and his responsibilities, of course we are in discussion. Of course we have discussed these issues, particularly in the context of the planning guidelines which are currently being revised and which I understand are intended to be published within the coming weeks, certainly not the coming months or years but within the coming weeks. That is the plan. The Minister, Deputy Kelly, has actually stated that. We are in discussion in relation to it.

There is no question of the Government or any Minister being dictated to by any interest. Absolutely no question of it. I would also emphasise that it is not as if there is no basis for community participation or community input. It may not be adequate. In fact, I think it is not adequate. However, it would be wrong to say there is none. We do have a robust planning system. We do have opportunity for people to participate in that and to input into it. It is not a question of us having to invent a whole process of community involvement and community participation because we have that in our planning system.

We are also dealing, for example, with the issue of noise which is one of the issues people have. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, has arranged for a piece of work to be prepared on the issue of noise. We will have that in the next few weeks. That is feeding into our discussions as well in relation to the planning guidelines. This is not all down the road, in months and months' or years' time. This is work that is happening at the moment and will feed into our deliberations on this in early course.