Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I cannot accept the proposed amendment from Senators Higgins and Ruane to delete section 3(b). The amendment was previously proposed and rejected on Committee Stage as it would effectively allow a drafting inconsistency between section 34(12A), which would not reflect the amendments to section 34(12) of the principal Act. Section 3(b), which the Senators propose to delete, is a technical drafting amendment to amend section 34(12A) of the principal Act.

The amendments to section 3(b) reflect the related amendments at section 34(12), which in turn have been introduced by section 3(a) of the Bill. As previously stated on Committee Stage in Seanad Éireann, it is notable that Senator Higgins has not sought to amend the main amendments to section 34(12) introduced by section 3(a) of the Bill. For information purposes, the purpose of the amendments to section 3(a) are technical drafting amendments, which have been reformed into sections 34(12)(a) and (b) of the principal Act on the basis that section 34(12)(a) already requires the planning authority to consider both whether a mandatory above-threshold EIA is required and to make a screening determination in the case of sub-threshold EIA development.

Following this, section 34(12)(b), which prohibits planning authorities considering retention applications for developments that would have required a determination as to whether an EIA is required to be carried out, that is, where a sub-threshold EIA development is screened to require EIA, is being deleted as superfluous as screening for EIA is a prerequisite for section 34(12)(a) to apply. Therefore, for the above reasons, I must reject the proposed Opposition amendment No. 1.