Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In the first instance, section 9 of the Bill deals with the process to be followed by the noise regulator, and not the planning authority. Any changes made to this part of the Bill should have no impact on planning provisions. Furthermore, section 9 directly reflects the provisions set out in Regulation No. 598/14, and for legal drafting reasons I cannot stray from the specific text of the regulation.

On the fundamental point made by Senator Norris, of the public being able to input into pre-planning consultation, I should state that there is no such provision in planning legislation for this to happen. It is certainly not appropriate for me, as the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, to use my legislation to change the planning laws. As I understand it, the purpose of pre-planning within the planning Acts is to allow the applicant, whoever that may be, and the planning authority to have preliminary, advisory discussions on how to proceed with an application, including regarding any need for environmental impact assessments and appropriate assessments or both. Anyone with a planning application can avail of pre-planning consultation, be they large developers, small developers or individual home owners. This amendment would mean that these meetings would happen in an open forum. I see no purpose or logic to that.

I understand that the Senator is seeking to enhance transparency. This is hardly the way to do that. Whenever a formal planning application is actually made, then there is full transparency.There is public notification and public consultation and, indeed, there is a requirement on the planning authority to make discussion from preplanning a matter of public record at that point.

In respect to deliberations on noise by the noise regulator, these will happen under full transparency. There are specific requirements to make all technical documentation public, to provide non-technical summaries of the data, which improves accessibility and understanding, and to hold open, public consultations. What the Senator is proposing is a fundamental change to the Planning and Development Acts. This legislation is not the appropriate place to make such a change.