Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will come in on a few of the Minister of State's responses. Let us tease things out for a minute. Senator McDowell was speaking about the national planning framework and the national planning statement. To be clear, I am in favour of plans and a national planning framework, with all the caveats and suggestions for changes I have made, but the section we are now discussing is a new proposal for a new layer to the planning system that centres, remarkably, around ministerial and departmental discretion in setting policy. I am referring to the national planning statement. There are intense democratic issues. Let us be clear regarding the listing of consultations here and there. On the matter of the national planning statement, there is only a provision stating the public may be consulted. There is no guarantee of consultation with the public.

Let me refer to couple of the points made. I do not believe it is appropriate to use a word like "inflammatory" in respect of those who say a very important decision is being made on persons with a disability and that it will have effect. When we make laws, they have effect. On the making of a decision on a matter of law, I say to those opposite that it is not personal, in a sense, to say the decision on how you vote on something does have an impact on persons, on the public. Let us see who is getting caught out by much of the process. We talked yesterday about the public and how unexempted developments do not get the same look in. When we talk about the Minister's grand planning statement, we should note the public may be consulted, or they may not, but they will feel the impacts because the Office of the Planning Regulator will be required to implement and, indeed, give direction to local authorities on what is in the Minister's planning statement and penalise local authorities if they do not do what the Minister has determined to be the best things. That is why the detail matters. It matters, for example, in my amendment, which the Minister of State did not really address. It relates to the fact that the crosscutting constraints or requirements we can all point to, the factors listed in section 21(2) to which the national planning framework must have regard, do not apply to the Minister when coming up with a statement, bearing in mind all the impacts, rules, guidelines, requirements and constraints that will come with the ministerial statement.

The language does matter. If we have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and I do not think anybody would suggest we are in a situation where the rights of persons with disabilities are currently vindicated in the State, the idea we would not name the rights of persons with disabilities, which has huge spatial and planning implications, as one of the core things that needs to be reflected and developed in one of the largest pieces of legislation while business, industry and lots of other things are named, that does have consequences. It is not something that should have to get picked up after the fact by people who go around town by town having to campaign to make their own street accessible to them. It should be there from the beginning. It affects 18% of the population. Of course it should be there.

In terms of another accusation, we are talking about things that are important. They affect persons, the public, and we are their representatives and we are speaking about them. In that regard, they matter. During a moment when I stepped out of the Chamber it was suggested I was scaremongering about the climate. Let us be very clear, on climate change we should be scared. We should be very concerned because, right now, Ireland is nowhere near on target to achieve the 51% reductions we need by 2030 and those reductions in themselves are grossly inadequate to what our actual fair share of climate emissions reduction would be when we look at the global picture, where hundreds of millions of people are in parts of the world that will very soon become unliveable. I make absolutely no apology for being very serious about climate and where it is put in and suggesting it needs to be put into some other places in the Bill. There is reference to the national climate objective and anthropogenic greenhouse gases but there are constraints in terms of where they are referenced and I do not think they are referenced in enough aspects.

The Minister of State suggested sustainable development underpins everything so we do not need to talk about it separately but why are we not adding the word "sustainable", which is one of my amendments, when we talk about commercial and industrial? When we mention sustainable development, if it is so crucial and the Minister of the day will supposedly be doing in his or her planning statement, what do we mean by sustainable development? I would appreciate an answer on that because there is not a definition there. The sustainable development goals have been rejected as something to be named in the Bill as an anchor when we talk about sustainable development. Do we mean sustaining development, development that is environmentally sustainable or what do we mean by it? That is something that needs to be addressed on Report Stage. If we are not adding in these specific name-checked issues on climate in the various points suggested and we are relying on the vague language of sustainable development being referenced, let us be really clear. I would expect that it would be at a minimum equivalent to what we see in the sustainable development goals, though they may need to be revised further and upwards.

I have a couple of other areas and will be very brief because in many of them we have a substantial disagreement. Oversight from the Oireachtas is crucially important. This is the appropriate Stage where many of us are bringing amendments but we will not get to them. Right now on Committee Stage is the time for us to bring in points. I agree with Senator O'Reilly that people should bring in some of the work and we have brought in the work. I commend the Civil Engagement Group team who have been amazing and others across the Oireachtas who have all been working to bring in suggestions and changes. We have to be clear.

People are speaking about their terrible concerns with the Office of the Planning Regulator. I have concerns when the Leader of the House, who has chosen to guillotine this legislation, speaks at length about her concerns about the Office of the panning Regulator when there is every chance we will not even get to the sections of the Bill that deal with it because there was a choice made to guillotine the legislation. If the Leader chooses to guillotine the legislation on the Office of the Planning Regulator but still wants to be able to give out about it, that is where the questions comes in. Make choices that allow good changes and laws to happen rather than giving a speech saying "I am very sorry". There are a number of areas of this Bill and that will come out of the national planning statement where a lot of people will be complaining after the fact. Maybe if they are lucky enough to be in the party the Minister happens to be in, they will have a little back road to try to get something into the national planning statement and express concerns. For many in the public who will be personally affected by the issues in the national planning statement, they cannot. Their local authorities will be overruled by the national planning statement. Their national parliamentary representatives will not have oversight of or an opportunity to reject the national planning statement. For many people in the public personally affected by the many issues in this Bill and the national planning statements, unless our amendments are accepted right now, they do not have an avenue for getting these issues addressed. It is important and very significant. There are some aspects of the Bill to be scared about. We will go through some of the rest of these other issues again in terms of local development plans when we come to that section. I support the comments made about nightlife by Senator Gavan.