Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Question 218: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the details of the new proposal which will see planning permission required to reclaim land; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21459/11]

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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A judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Case C-66/06 on 20 November 2008 found that Ireland's system of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) screening for certain categories of agriculture related projects was over-reliant on size thresholds and did not take other relevant criteria (e.g. cumulative impacts of development, location relative to sensitive sites etc.) into account, and that Ireland was therefore in breach of its obligations under the EIA Directive.

The relevant project categories are: (a) projects for the restructuring of rural land holdings (1(a) of Annex II); (b) the use of uncultivated land or semi-natural areas for intensive agricultural purposes, (1(b) of Annex II); and (c) water management projects for agriculture, including irrigation and land drainage projects (1(c) of Annex II).

In preparing its response to this issue, my Department undertook extensive consultation with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Following this collaboration, it was agreed that it would be more appropriate that most of these types of activities – essentially removal of field boundaries, converting semi-natural areas to intensive agriculture and general field drainage works - would be regulated by that Department. Accordingly, it was decided that only development involving the drainage or reclamation of wetlands would be retained in the planning system.

My Department has produced Regulations which reduce the threshold for mandatory environmental impact assessment of drainage/reclamation of wetlands from 20 hectares to 2 hectares, and reduce the threshold above which a planning application is required to 0.1 hectares. The Planning and Development (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2011 were laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas on 23 June 2011, and referred to the Joint Committee on Environment, Transport, Culture and the Gaeltacht for consideration. The Committee discussed the Regulations at their meeting of Thursday 14 July, and referred them back to the Houses for approval. It is expected that the Regulations will receive the positive approval of both Houses on 20 July.

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is currently preparing Regulations to implement a screening and consent system in relation to the other activities the subject of the judgment, which will therefore be exempted from the requirement to obtain planning permission.

It is intended that both sets of Regulations will be signed shortly and that Guidance on the implementation of the Regulations will be issued at the same time by the two Departments.