Patricia Stephenson (Social Democrats)

On amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 13., I am going to double-check this and let the Minister of State know later, but this might have been slightly reformatted from my original submission. Maybe it was something to do with the renumbering but anyway, I will speak to the essence of the amendment. The purpose of this amendment is to limit the potentially negative effect of the specified overriding powers in the 2024 Act that it refers to, which could otherwise be used to negatively impact an existing public right of way by removing, reducing, limiting, diminishing or compromising the use of or enjoyment of existing public rights of way that were in place before the commencement of Part 3 of the 2024 Act.

Specifically, it limits the effect of negative changes given new revised national planning frameworks or regional, spatial and economic strategies via SI 5 or section 68 and any negative changes in further alignments forced by sections 61 and 62 - consequences of new or amended national planning statement for development plans and expedited variation of development plan". I very much urge the Minister of State to consider the importance of rights of way and ensure that the 2024 Act is not used to negatively impact any existing rights of way and the enjoyment and use the public gets from them, and to accept this amendment, at least in principle, and further improve it as outlined when the Bill reverts to the Dáil given that we might not have a chance to have Report Stage. Maybe it could be considered in the Dáil, or the Minister of State could accept a similar amendment from colleagues who might put these forward in the Dáil.