Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As I stated on the previous occasion, the Department is not withholding the almost 9,000 submissions. It takes time to redact them to make them compliant with the general data protection regulation. That is simply the process it is going through. At the outset, our initial focus was on examining the submissions. I agree it was late but we furnished Senators with an overall report. Once those submissions are all gone through the redaction process they will absolutely be on the website and anyone can look them up. I realise that Senators could ask how they are to know who has made submissions. In the case of the broad range of bodies, many of their submissions were publicly available.I do not know what the Senator is implying about what industry or who has been influencing me. I take exception to that.

On the amendments, the relevant parties in any appeal, essentially the appellant, the decision maker and the applicant, are notified of appeals. Appellants are given all the information at the time relevant to a particular case, including all appropriate assessments, screening reports and, where it applies, appropriate assessment determinations. There is no need for anybody to use the access to information on the environment mechanism. That information is there and the file can be obtained. When we get the online portal up and running, that information will be freely available. The access to information on the environment issue is not an aspect of this.

The Bill's provisions reflect normal practice in other appeals bodies. It is not unfair, once an appellant has been provided with as much information as will be available to the forestry appeals committee, that it should be requested to furnish any additional information in advance. As we are bringing this in line with other types of appeals body mechanisms, I will not be accepting these amendments.