Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Higgins in regard to the difference between “or” and “and”. It is a binary choice. I want to address this point. It is my experience of being on a local authority for 11 years that management do quote the legislation if they decide not to do something. I just had that experience last night when I had underlying legislation quoted at me as to why they had decided not to do something.

A public meeting is a very valuable thing to have. Nobody wants to stop online meetings happening, but there is a requirement to have a public meeting. As Senators Higgins and Keogan said, there are people who do not have online access, do not have good literacy and do not have an understanding of the planning process. What we are simply trying to do with this amendment is make sure it is kept more inclusive.

There is a central point that this Bill is being rushed through the House because it needs to be done in the context of the Covid emergency, which is fine. However, there is a provision in the Bill that is not in the context of the emergency but is seeking to make this permanent. Nobody knows what is going to happen in five years, ten years or 15 years. It is not a question of people using this nefariously but it is a question of people deciding, because of resources, that they have completed this. Senator Fitzpatrick and I have been on Dublin City Council for a long time and we know that when it comes to some of the issues, public consultation is not necessarily good enough and we have to go back again when people learn about it. This is about trying to make sure there is more robust public consultation and that it is a public meeting.

I want to go back to something the Minister of State said when he referred to it being at the draft stage. One cannot reintroduce issues when it is coming to the elected members and issues have to be raised at the draft stage. As Senator Fitzpatrick said, this is the statutory process. This is the bare minimum stage of the development plan process. It includes the additional extras but we are simply trying to make sure that a very simple thing within the statutory process is that there are public meetings and online meetings, and we are trying to limit that for the purposes of Covid. It is fairly simple.