Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Nobody is suggesting not going through proper environmental measures, but this all comes down to when does one start the process. We were under the impression that this was going to start much earlier. To be fair to us, there must be a recognition of that. We have given a lot of time to the Department in order to make this progress. An SEA is not an extremely arduous thing to do. We are not talking about measures that might require an integrated energy plan, for example. That is not the level of environmental scrutiny that is necessary here. I had hoped that it would have been done by the end of last year. Regarding the assurance the Minister of State is giving, he says it will be done in months, but I would like to know how many months. My understanding is that the public consultation would take eight weeks.