I move amendment No. 1: In page 5, to delete lines 22 to 26 and substitute the following: “(4) A draft of the designation order shall be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas, and the order shall be made only after a resolution approving the draft has been passed by each House of the Oireachtas.”. I want to talk about the concentration in the hands of the Minister of huge power under this Bill. I am generally supportive of the intention of this Bill and what the Minister is trying to achieve. However, there is not sufficient oversight of this or transparency about it. As I have said before, any legislation has to be drafted keeping in mind any Minister and indeed any Government being in that role. What is being proposed in my amendment and in a similar amendment from the Labour Party is very reasonable. It is simply that the designation order shall be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas, and the order shall be made only after a resolution approving the draft has been passed by each House of the Oireachtas. That allows for proper scrutiny, debate, questions around the process, how this designation was arrived at, and whether one project is being prioritised as critical infrastructure when another is not. The current provisions in the Bill put the onus on Members of the Opposition to use limited Private Member's time to put down a resolution. Smaller parties and groups may not have time to do that. Just to ask questions about the designation should not require having to put down a motion in Private Member's time when we have limited opportunities to do that. This is a sensible proposal. I do not see the issues with it. It would give greater transparency and oversight to the process, and put more confidence into it. The Oireachtas, Members of this House and the general public have a right to know why these decisions have been made, why certain projects have been prioritised, and why certain projects are not being prioritised. This will prove to be controversial because there will be geographic areas, for example, that do not get their infrastructure project prioritised and they will wonder why that is the case when other areas did. In the past, there have been instances of certain parts of infrastructure getting a much higher priority than others. We are talking about not just prioritisation under this Bill but also the money behind that, which is public money. The more oversight we have of that, the better.

Sentiment score: 0.13

The intention of my amendment is that it could go through the Houses of the Oireachtas in a matter of hours. That is the amount of time that would be needed. It should not be causing any delays. It could happen within a matter of days. Indeed, if the Minister has made a designation, it is not as if the project just stalls in its entirety until the designation order is ratified by the Houses of the Oireachtas. There is still work that can go on in the project. I wish to press the amendment.

Sentiment score: 0.09