Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not without sympathy for Senator Boyhan's position. I have some reservations with regard to the restrictions or potential for restrictions contained in the Bill. I recognise 100% that we need progress and we need to move with the times but we also need to recognise that online is not accessible to everyone. This is a fact. When I raised this with the Minister last week, the answer was that his 85 year old mother or father is online. One instance of success does not a proper public consultation make. Only this morning, I got cut off from a mobile phone in Templeogue because the signal was bad because it was raining. Only this morning, I could not have an image on a later call because it was raining. There are some things that just do not happen online. We are not there yet. There are frustrations with technology, and what should be happening versus the reality of what is happening are not always the same.

I will bring us back to the briefing documents we received from the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, which speak about access to justice in environmental matters and the Maastricht recommendations to promote effective public consultation and public participation in decision-making on environmental matters. It states online consultations can complement face to face public meetings and hearings but should not replace them. Within the Bill discretionary power is given without us knowing or having reassurance as to how that discretion can be exercised.

I have to say my experience of the planners in South Dublin County Council was that they could not be more accessible. They could not be more proud of their metrics on public consultation. They keep very meticulous metrics on how they permit access to the public. It is not that I come from a place of suspicion but analogous to this at present is that we have consultation on BusConnects, and by virtue of the pandemic this is confined to online consultation. Each bus corridor is only getting a 90 minute public consultation meeting online. Everyone who participates is restricted to one question. There are many people on calls and it is restricted to two representatives from a residents' association. Many estates do not have residents' associations. When they are online many people do not get to speak. They put their questions into the chat and get a response so to be fair the questions are answered but they are not answered in a way that takes on board the question. The answers are most unsatisfactory. It is not that I am against it, because I am not, but this manner of public consultation on something with an environmental impact and quality of life impact is not public consultation.It is not respectful. It is confined to six weeks but the outcome will yield a dramatic change to people's lives for a long time. If we take that as the analogy for how public consultation occurs when it is restricted to an online process, then I have concerns over whether we will ever reach a bar on what public consultation is, especially if we leave it to the discretion of those involved without guidelines for how discretion is to be exercised being clearly set out. That can be done in a statutory instrument afterwards.

I appreciate the emergency of now. However, it may not be wise to view the lens of the future through the lens of now. We are in a pandemic and we are concerned about elderly parents in our homes who may become ill and who are at risk in the pandemic. This time will pass. What legacy will we be left with? We will be left with a fantastic legacy in that many of us have moved forward in terms of using technology, but at what sacrifice? We need to ensure the sacrifice is minimised. Why say "as it considers appropriate"? Who considers it appropriate? How is appropriateness arrived at?

My background as a lawyer is in employment law. The Acts may prescribe one right, but the meticulous detail of how that right is exercised between employer and employee is clearly worked out. There are precedents either in decisions or in interpretations through statutory instruments.

Obviously, the Government amendment will be passed but if no other amendments are to be accepted, we need an assurance on the guidelines and how they will manifest.

A development plan is a big deal. It is too important. I would hope that the development plans of the future will embrace big changes, including environmental changes and big changes in our infrastructure. I certainly hope they embrace great imagination for what our future can look like. However, to do that we need true public consultation. I hold a little concern - although I believe it can be alleviated - about ensuring we do not rule out the element of meeting the public. Meeting out and having public meetings can sometimes be considered inconvenient. That is certainly how it feels at the moment with BusConnects. It seems inconvenient and has been treated as an inconvenience that simply has to be gone through, a box-checking exercise. That is not okay.

We are signed up to a convention to ensure local people have the closest say in their democracy. Holding public meetings is an important and integral element of that. I seek the reassurance of the Minister of State and I seek a mechanism by which that will be exercised in respect of these announcements.