It has already been said by others, but I am also struck by the pace at which this legislation has progressed and is progressing through the House to a point where it will reach completion this evening. It is fair to say that for the first 18 months of the lifetime of this Government, we have seen very little by way of legislation come through the House. Suddenly, however, we are under dramatic pressure to get this legislation through without any sort of real scrutiny. Providing such scrutiny is why we are all here. That begs the question as to who is writing this type of legislation and who is writing transport policy for this country. There are certain words in the Bill, which just reads like an advert for Ryanair. How does the Minister determine what connectivity is? What the amendment seeks to put in is a definition of that. Instead, we are going to have a situation where a future Minister will have to determine what takes priority and whether it will be connectivity or the climate. I have to hope that future Ministers will understand that an obligation is not a choice. An obligation is something that we must do, and to exempt what is proposed from the provisions of section 15 of the climate Act is quite preposterous. Last week, I raised with the Minister the fact that the crux of this legislation, in the first instance, is not necessarily to do with climate; rather, it is do with local infrastructure. That remains the case. Yet, here we are knowing more. When we know more, surely we have to do more. In that regard, we now propose to place a level of power that is centralised in a ministerial order. That concerns me, and it should concern everyone watching. We have bodies in place that are statutorily responsible for land use the planning of infrastructure in Ireland. The Minister does not need me to tell him about how abject a failure the strategic housing development policy was in that it bypassed local authorities and went straight to An Coimisiún Pleanála. The Minister is saying he got rid of it-----

Sentiment score: 0.06

-----and now we are looking to do the same thing by bypassing local authorities and An Coimisiún Pleanála, which are the bodies responsible for making very important planning decisions. They will never be perfect and neither will this House. However, their being bypassed is a matter of concern that I want to emphasise on the record of the House. We are speaking about this in a context where the WHO has recognised that there have been 1,300 excess deaths in Europe in the past month due to the recent heatwave. Every conversation about aviation expansion must surely focus primarily on our future and our climate future. We do not record carbon emissions caused by aviation in our budgets. That is wrong, and it is something we need to really consider. I have spoken to many experts - I am sure the Minister is speaking to the relevant sectoral interests - who told me that putting more exemptions into section 15 of the climate Act will not help the situation. Actually, what it will so is dramatically undermine the importance of the Act. That is why I ultimately believe that we are guillotining this legislation. It is to stymie debate and undermine the pre-legislative scrutiny report, which was so comprehensive. Where are the recommendations made in that regard contemplated in this legislation?

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I will finish on this. What we are faced with in the context of this legislation is the potential for future Ministers to end up in court as a result of the State's duties under the climate Act not being fulfilled. I look forward to the Minister's comment on that. It is unlawful that what we are trying to do is not only bypass the statutory bodies, but also not fulfil our obligations under domestic law when it comes to the climate Act. That merits further scrutiny, yet in approximately 60 minutes, it will all be done and dusted.

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I thank the Minister for his very comprehensive response to the many points made. As Deputy O'Gorman said, we have to be accurate in what we say. This legislation is exempt from section 15 of the climate action Act. It is of critical importance to acknowledge that in the first instance. Otherwise, we are beating around the bush and being quite disingenuous. Speaking of being disingenuous, we should not be dangling the prospect of 4,000 jobs being impacted during the debate on legislation of this nature. I do not think it is accurate to speak about this matter in that context. The Minister has insight from meeting with the DAA and everybody else involved, but, given the tight timeframe, to make a threat of that nature in respect of legislation does not help. I listened with real interest to a DAA spokesperson commenting on balanced regional development and the importance of other regional airports. He said that airlines simply do not want to use the other airports and that is why the passenger cap needs to go. In that context, I reiterate the point I made in my initial contribution. This is legislation and the policy behind it are being driven by the market. The cost of that is yet to be determined. The Minister reverted to me about the SHD legislation and how it differs from this Bill. On the face of it, however, it is undemocratic to bypass the local authority in the first instance. The Minister referred to the strategic importance of this piece of infrastructure. When he was a councillor - I was also a councillor in Kildare - he would not have been impressed by the idea that the local authority of which he was a member, in the context of the important function it plays in respect of the planning process, would be bypassed. I have a very fond memory of a colleague of the Minister's who served with me on Kildare County Council declaring a climate emergency. He put down a motion at a meeting of Kildare County Council, banged on the table and stated that we were in a climate emergency and living in that dystopian future that we were told to worry about when it came to severe weather events. That colleague of the Minister is now going to vote in favour of legislation, the consequences of which we simply cannot know because no calculation has been carried out. There is no sense from a numbers perspective what impact this legislation will have. The Minister cannot rebut that because it is factually correct. We have not done the assessment. We have not done the holistic calculation of just how damaging this will be. There was a situation in Kildare about a month ago whereby the ESB threatened that it was going to flood one community because of excess water in the River Liffey. At the same time, another community 3 km or 4 km away had no water. That is testament to the ever-worsening and ever-more-extreme climate events our country faces and to our place in this world. It pains me when colleagues declare that we are in a climate emergency at local authority meetings and then the Government bypasses local authorities with its decision-making structures. I wonder what will happen next. What other ministerial powers are going to come about? When we are talking about nuclear energy or other important projects, will it be okay to be undemocratic and not to put these through the formal planning process because of their strategic importance? I am worried. If we get that precedent wrong, it will be the start of a very worrying trend.

Sentiment score: -0.01