Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

My amendment No. 13 has been grouped with amendment No. 12. I agree with everything Senator Boyhan said with the slight exception that I do not believe six weeks is adequate and I do not believe the four weeks that is currently stipulated in the Bill is adequate. Let us bear in mind that a marine planning policy statement, MPPS, as the Minister of State said, has high-level principles. It is quite wide-ranging and has significant implications. There may well be a requirement for a strategic environmental assessment, SEA, and certainly an appropriate assessment, I would imagine, of the implications, any significant changes or significant matters in an MPPS. The four-week timeframe that we might apply to a building is just not appropriate for something so significant and it creates an inequality of arms for the public.

Again, people say everybody is able to go in through these public processes. They are there and it is important that everybody is able to go in. It is part of the public's democratic right. Also, that is why prescribed bodies and their expertise are important. It should not be that this is only available to those who can afford to do so. We know that companies may have a large number of full-time staff and be very well resourced. These for-profit organisations will be in a position to produce and turn things around very quickly. For the public to engage in something so significant and wide as an NPPS will take time because, for many people, this is an extra thing that they do but they have an important insight to give. I am asking that the Minister of State would make it 16 weeks. Such a period would allow for the conduct of SEAs or AAs and the knowledge that comes out of those. It would also allow for members of the public to conduct their own research and, perhaps, agree positions. If, for example, we have coastal communities that are trying to work together or respond to something significant, it would allow for better decision-making and engagement by those communities, which would then engage with the process. If the Minister of State accepts Senator Boyhan's amendment, which involves a six-week period, I will bow to that because there is so much else that is good in his amendment. However, I urge the Minister of State to consider the fact that a period four weeks is deeply inadequate in the context of this process.