These are modest amendments reinstituting some form of democratic oversight. I presume the Government is going to oppose them, because the whole purpose of the Bill from the Government's perspective is to gut democratic oversight and democratic input into the planning system. The public should know where this is coming from. The Collison brothers, two filthy-rich Irish billionaires, have developed seriously undue influence over the Irish Government via the neolibertarian think-tank, Progress Ireland. First, it was changing the law to allow landlords to rent out beds in sheds by getting rid of planning permission for cabins in back gardens. Now, they are driving this Bill to gut democratic input into the planning system so that what tech billionaires see as critical infrastructure can bypass normal democratic checks and balances. Presumably the Minister will oppose a modicum of democratic oversight as proposed by these amendments. It does not take a genius to know what this will mean. It will mean data centres driving household electricity costs even higher, hoovering up all the renewables that are added to the grid, just like they have been doing for the past ten years. The next item on their agenda is normalising nuclear power. The mindless parrots over on the Government benches are singing along to that tune now too. The last we heard of the Collisons was them jogging through Tel Aviv, tweeting that it is great to be back, during a genocide. These Zionists are disciples of the notorious Koch brothers. For decades, they have bankrolled and astroturfed for far right, neoliberal and libertarian causes around the world, including Javier Milei in Argentina, climate denialism, and, of course, Donald Trump. Ninety-year-old Charles Koch, the closest thing to a real-life Mr. Burns off "The Simpsons", is an idol for these people. Last summer, Patrick Collison gave a keynote address at a gathering of libertarians in Washington, DC, where he eulogised Charles Koch as inspirational. The Ayn Rand Institute, the Cato Institute, the Adam Smith Institute, and the Mercatus Center, all shadowy, Koch-funded, right-wing think tanks, are co-thinkers and fellow travellers of Progress Ireland, with 1,000 ties that bind them together. It is genuinely scary stuff. The Government will oppose this amendment which is about a modicum of democratic oversight. Progress Ireland's innovation policy lead, Sam Enright, recently hosted a conference to discuss whether Milton Friedman was the greatest economist of all time. The fact that he was the architect of Pinochet's neoliberal reforms in Chile, which would only be enforced by a military coup and brutal dictatorship during which an estimated 40,000 people were tortured, is no problem for these guys. If anything, as the Collisons' attitude to Israel shows, it is probably a plus. When Progress Ireland launched an appeal for funding, it bragged that, "Ireland is highly conformist and is more prone to deference to elite or expert consensus than our British counterparts." That was said to be a positive in its pitch for funding. I am making this speech to warn everyone who is watching that what we are experiencing right now is a key moment of corporate takeover. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the right-wing Independents are lapping it up like the corporate lapdogs that they are. We have to wake up and stop the Collisons before it is too late. This amendment is a very small step towards doing that.

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