Kevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

In response to Senator Reilly, by no means am I questioning the reputation of Fingal County Council. What I am doing is trying to raise the issue of the statutory regulations under EU Regulation No. 598/14. I know that we have raised questions on AnnMarie Farrelly's letter from Fingal County Council, when it was sent and what was in it etc. It is not when it was sent and what second and third letters were sent. It is the definition. Fingal County Council, as it should, has: "an extensive remit in both shaping and determining the strategic direction of Dublin Airport through its land-use, planning and associated functions". However, that is a contradiction for it if it then becomes the noise regulator.

Following on from the adoption of the development plan, Fingal County Council has the local area planning. Planning is the total remit of Fingal County Council and it should be. There is no contradiction in it having a responsibility in planning, local area plans, development plans and master plans. Those are totally the remit of a local authority but the problem is when a local authority is given a contradictory function. How does the chief executive officer, CEO, act without direction from the local authority members? If we have learned anything from the disasters of the 2000s, it is that these type of regulations and Chinese walls do not work. There has to be an amount of clarity and that clarity is not there. As Fingal County Council said, in light of the existing complex and varied role that Fingal County Council plays, as outlined above, it is considered that the council may not be best placed to act as a competent authority for the purposes of implementation of Regulation No. 598/14, with particular reference to clause 13, which I pointed out.

On the rights and wrongs, this was a thoughtful position in 2017. As for what Senator Norris said, I do not know what political pressures were put on or if there were any but this flags up warnings and I am asking the Minister to tread very carefully on this because he could put Fingal County Council or the CEO in a dreadful and contradictory position of trying to balance one side with the other. A person cannot be asked to separate those particular roles because a CEO of Fingal County Council has responsibilities on areas and if a counter-set of responsibilities is put on him or her, it puts that person in a very difficult and unfortunate position.

We are talking about teasing this out and I wanted to tease out this particular section with the Minister because I have real concerns on it. We could have explored and discussed whether CAR is the competent authority but that has been taken out of our hands given the Order of Business that was agreed. This is one of the amendments I would have put back until Report Stage to give us an opportunity to tease it out and see is there a better way but as that will not happen, I will press the amendment. I have genuine concerns when one looks at the directive from Europe and when one looks at what Fingal County Council is being asked to do. There are contradictions there and the whole matter basically comes back down to trust.

I ask the Minister to rethink this. Unfortunately he will not get an opportunity to rethink it on Report Stage but if this is going back into the Dáil, I sincerely ask him to review it, look at it and interrogate it because he is going in the wrong direction. Ultimately, the Minister could be found to be wrong in the courts.