Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 45:

In page 7, between lines 21 and 22, to insert the following: "(c) When notifying an appellant of a determination, the Forestry Appeals Committee will include a report on how-

(i) Ireland’s commitments and targets on climate change and biodiversity,

(ii) the Sustainable Development Goals,

(iii) relevant EU directives,

(iv) the need or otherwise for an environmental impact assessment or appropriate assessment, and

(v) a National Forestry Programme,

have been considered in the Forestry Appeals Committee’s determination.".

Amendment No. 46 relates to the timeliness of the publication of decisions. Amendment No. 47 relates to the question of notifications and what information is included in decisions, and amendment No. 45 is similar. Due to the ruling out of order of amendment No. 40, we did not get to tease out this question that is also addressed in amendment No. 45. In amendment No. 45, I ask that a number of factors would be reflected and included in the information concerning a determination that is made by the forestry appeals committee. I am only going to focus on the most important one, which is that when it notifies an appellant of a determination, the forestry appeals committee should indicate to that appellant how it has considered the need or otherwise for an environmental impact assessment, EIA, or appropriate assessment. This goes to the heart of amendment No. 40, which, unfortunately, was ruled out of order.

There is a real concern that, in the Bill as it stands, there is no requirement on the forestry appeals committee to consider whether an environmental impact assessment or appropriate assessment is needed. Of course, it may decide, and it is its prerogative to say, that an environmental impact assessment or an appropriate assessment is not necessary, but it should at least consider it. At the moment, the Bill only requires that it may screen for an EIA or conduct an EIA, or may screen for an appropriate assessment or conduct an appropriate assessment.

I am not suggesting that there should be an EIA or an appropriate assessment in every case. However, when we talk about why this Bill is happening, one of the reasons is that there has been a large increase in appeals. One of the reasons for that is because, in July, the then Minister, Deputy Calleary, admitted in the Houses of the Oireachtas that the licensing decisions that had been made had been found not to be delivering properly in regard to the habitat of birds and all of the various environmental directives. We had European courts telling us we were not doing the licensing process right. That obviously spurred a spike in people putting in appeals, because they are concerned about licences, given it has been admitted they had not perhaps been conducted with due regard to environmental factors.

Now that we have an appeals mechanism, please let us not make the same mistake and let us not have this appeals mechanism challenged because it also does not give due consideration to the question of whether EIAs or appropriate assessments are needed. At a minimum, the forestry appeals committee, whether it takes one minute or five minutes to do it, should consider whether we need an EIA or appropriate assessment. That is the basic point: not to do those assessments, but to consider whether they are needed. If an appellant has put in an appeal and may be deciding whether he or she wants to take a case to the High Court, for example, the appellant should know whether the forestry appeals committee has considered the question of EIA or appropriate assessment.