Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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566. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if any planning application for lithium mining in the Carlow-Wicklow region, or any region, will be subject to the normal local authority planning process to ensure full transparency. [36836/14]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Development works generally require planning permission unless specifically exempted from this requirement. Section 4 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, and Schedule 2 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001, as amended, set out various exemptions from the requirement to obtain planning permission, subject in many cases to specific conditions.

Class 5 of Part 3 of Schedule 2 of the Planning Regulations provides that the carrying out of works on any land for the purpose of minerals prospecting and the erection or placing on land of any structures required for that purpose, where the prospecting is carried out pursuant to and in accordance with the terms and conditions of a licence, lease or permission granted by the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources under the Minerals Development Acts, 1940 to 1999 shall be exempted development.

However, section 4 of the Planning and Development Act provides that development shall not be exempted development if an environmental impact assessment (EIA) or an appropriate assessment (AA) of the development is required.

Projects requiring EIA are listed in Schedule 5 of the Planning Regulations. Point 2(c) of Part 2 of Schedule 5 of the Planning Regulations provides that all extraction of minerals within the meaning of the Minerals Development Acts, 1940 to 1999 shall be subject to environmental impact assessment.

Accordingly, proposals relating to lithium mining are required to be subject to a planning application and to an environmental impact assessment.