Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is truly an amazing place, as anyone living in the area will say. As a former councillor, Senator Cummins knows about public participation. He advocates it strongly when we discuss county development plans, local government, regional government and national government. I have no doubt everyone here understand the importance of public participation. We would not be successful politicians if we did not engage and advocate strongly with our electorate regarding public participation in decision making. For this reason, I do not know what the big problem is.

Amendment No. 12 proposes to include a new paragraph (b): "stating that a copy of the proposed statement, amendment or revocation may be inspected on a website of the Government, and available for inspection at a local authority planning office". Surely the Minister of State does not have a problem with that. Is he, a Minister in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, going to tell me there is a problem with that? Let me break it down and simplify it. All that is being requested in paragraph (b) is that copies be available for inspection at the statutory local planning offices which have planning hubs and a mechanism to facilitate the public display of proposals. I want to hear the Minister of State tell me if he is against that.

The amendment also proposes to include a new paragraph (c) providing for the invitation of "members of the public and prescribed bodies as follows: a local, regional or planning authority." Those are arms of the State. Paragraph (c) also provides for the invitation of the Office of Public Works. We have a designated Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW. I am surprised. I would say the Minister of State would be shocked if he thought we were excluding the OPW. Paragraph (c) further provides for the invitation of a body referred to in the prescribed bodies and for a period of six weeks for the making of representations. The Bill, as drafted, provides for four weeks but I propose it be six weeks. An additional two weeks is not a long time.

I would like to think we could put this Bill to bed today rather than defer it. However, I am happy to come to the House on Friday and tease this matter out further. Let me break the amendment down into three simple asks. It is about the local authorities, the Office of Public Works and moving the time allowed for the making of representations from four to six weeks. Taking each segment of that, will the Minister of State tell us with what aspect of that proposal does he have a difficulty?