Having been denied the opportunity to tease out some of the provisions of this legislation by the decision to waive pre-legislative scrutiny, giving a mere 60 minutes to the debate on Report Stage is entirely inappropriate. I have deep concerns about what the Government is doing tonight. It is seeking to undermine the climate action Act by the back door. More significantly, by the provision of section 7 of this legislation which disapplies section 15 of the climate action Act, it is actually going to make it more likely that challenges against big infrastructure projects will be successful. I will repeat that. By disapplying section 15, it is more likely that challenges to big infrastructure projects, particularly infrastructure projects that are going to help us reach our climate targets in the area of public transport, will be successfully judicially reviewed in the courts. I want to take the House back to the decision of the Supreme Court earlier this year relating to Coolglass and section 15 of the climate action Act. Coolglass Wind Farm Limited had applied to a wind farm in County Laois. The then named An Bord Pleanála rejected that application on the basis that the Laois county development plan said that there should be no wind farms in particular areas. The Supreme Court held that An Bord Pleanála had not applied its section 15 obligation to consider the climate obligations of this particular wind farm development and did not consider its pro-climate benefits. Section 15 was the critical factor in the Supreme Court overturning a rejection of planning permission. The Bill that the Minister is putting forward provides that section 15, which we have demonstrated protected a major infrastructure project three months ago, will no longer apply to those projects. This entire piece of legislation is being conveyed on the basis of changing the law to get stuff over the line and to get these big projects delivered. The one time that section 15 was actually used in our courts, it was the decisive factor in a rejection of a wind farm swinging to an approval. This notion being put forward that what we are doing is going to help us deliver big infrastructure projects is entirely wrong, and this is demonstrated by a recent decision of the Supreme Court. Earlier in this process, I referred to three real-life judicial reviews against public transport projects: the judicial review of the Luas in Finglas, the judicial review of DART+ West and the judicial review in my constituency of BusConnects between Blanchardstown and the city centre. In each one of those cases, an individual was protecting their private property rights through a judicial review. I did not agree with those judicial reviews. I wish that they had not gone on. I am glad that two of them have been resolved, but someone exercised their rights. These were not environmentalists. These were not people with climate objections. These were people with a personal property right objection to these particular projects. Time and again, they are the source of the majority of judicial reviews that come before the courts, not environmental matters. This Bill does nothing to restrict the ability of somebody to take a judicial review on the basis of protecting their property rights, the much bigger driver of judicial reviews within our courts. In each of those cases, and one of them has been litigated before the courts, the National Transport Authority, the body taking the projects forward, strengthens its case for getting acceptance of those particular projects by saying that it is implementing its climate objectives by bringing them forward under section 15. We have to very clear: we are taking away the extra protection that section 15 gives to these particular projects, and public transport projects are explicitly listed as one of the areas that this Critical Infrastructure Bill is to apply to. It has been described as something that will help deliver these projects. It is exactly the opposite. We can be sure that as this Government and future governments advance major infrastructure projects, and particularly in the area of public transport, they will be judicially reviewed. They always are. People do it because they do not like the compulsory purchase order and they do not like losing a piece of their land. They have a right to do that. However, by passing this Bill tonight, we are making it more likely that those judicial reviews will be successful. We are making it more likely that public transport projects will be successfully judicially review by courts and plans with planning permission will be overturned. We are doing that wilfully. I have raised this throughout. The Minister has at no point come back and explained why he is ignoring the powerful decision of the Supreme Court in the Coolglass case. That judgment shows that section 15 of the Act protects projects that are seen to have a positive climate impact. We are wilfully doing that today. I want to put it on the record of the House that this Bill will not advance big public transport projects. It undermines and lessens the chance that they will get planning permission. It particularly strengthens the case of those who want to judicially review for personal reasons.

Sentiment score: 0.16

I will come back to the central issue of whether this Bill will make it more or less likely that judicial reviews will be taken, and also the question of whether it will mean judicial reviews are more or less likely to be successful after they are taken. The Minister noted that there have been academic articles discussing the impact of the climate Act. He said this is tangible evidence of the risk of section 15 of the climate Act. I am sure those particular academics are absolutely delighted now to have the Minister reference their work. The impact scores for their research are going to go off the charts now that they have been cited in the Dáil. With respect, however, this is not tangible evidence. The tangible evidence we have about the impact of section 15 of the climate Act is the Supreme Court decision in the Coolglass case four months ago, which made it very clear that section 15 applied to a planning decision and was used to overturn the denial of planning permission. Section 15 protected the infrastructure development in that case. The Government's Bill is disapplying section 15 to the biggest types of infrastructure development that the Government and future Governments are seeking to bring forward. This Bill removes legal provisions that have been held to weigh in favour of the granting of planning permission. Throughout all of this debate, the Minister has failed to address the issue of how section 15 has been found by our Supreme Court to benefit these big projects, particularly where they are seen to have a positive climate impact. When judicial reviews are taken against big public transport proposals, as they always are, that provision is going to be denied to them. In future, the granting of a designation of critical infrastructure to big projects may actually be the death knell of those projects because they will be harder to defend in the courts, not easier.

Sentiment score: 0.23