Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)
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Question 257: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the large number of quarries throughout the country that are now applying for retrospective planning permission; and the extent to which the local authorities that are determining these decisions are accessing materials from these unapproved sites. [21711/05]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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My Department does not have detailed information on the number of applications for retention planning permission currently being made for quarries. It may be that a number of such pre-October 1964 quarries are taking the opportunity to regularise their position under the planning code in the context of the new registration process mandated by section 261 of the Planning and Development Act 2000.

Section 261 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, which was commenced from 28 April 2004, introduced a once-off system of registration for all quarries, except those for which planning permission has been granted in the last five years. Under the registration system, quarry operators must supply full details of their operations to the planning authority, including information on the area of the quarry, the material being extracted, the hours of operation and the traffic, noise and dust generated by the quarry. This information was required to be supplied within a year, for example, by 27 April 2005.

Regarding quarries that have registered, a planning authority may restate, modify or add to conditions on the operation of a quarry that has received planning permission over five years ago. A planning authority may also impose conditions on the operation of a pre-October 1964 quarry or, if such a quarry would be likely to have significant effects on the environment and has an extracted area that is greater than five hectares, it must require an application for planning permission and the submission of an environmental impact statement.

Guidelines on quarries and ancillary activities to assist with the implementation of section 261 were issued to planning authorities at the time the section was commenced. Local authorities have also been reminded by my Department on a number of occasions, most recently in the memorandum on grants for non-national roads of February 2001, that there should be full compliance with the planning laws in relation to any proposed use of land as temporary quarries during the duration of any works.