Sinn Féin will be supporting both sets of exempted development regulations. They are modest and reasonable and, in our view, they are sensible. We have no issue with them proceeding. However, I will put on the record of the Dáil my deep dissatisfaction at the manner in which the Minister has processed these regulations. As Members will know, this is the second time these regulations have been brought before the committee and the House in the space of a few short weeks. They were originally presented as a single regulation. When the Minister of State responsible came before the committee, he explained that, because the environmental assessment had not been completed, he might have to bring the regulations back in a revised form. We were then informed by way of a letter from the Minister of State that there was going to be a need for significant amendments to the agricultural exempted development regulations. In a move completely unprecedented in my decade in the Dáil, the Minister requested our committee to do something that, on foot of legal advice, we deemed not to be in line with Standing Orders and effectively illegal. He requested that we overturn a decision of the Oireachtas. The consequence of all of this is that the Minister and the Government may not meet their deadline of the end of this year for the over-the-shop exempted development regulations, which would have been an absolute disaster. The reason I am saying this here is because there is going to be a series of other exempted development regulations coming before our committee. I have no doubt that there was a level of enthusiasm, shall I say, by the Minister of State to get these through but as a consequence of that, and, ultimately, the Minister is responsible for the actions of his junior Ministers, things took place that should not have. That meant that additional committee and Oireachtas time was required, and unnecessary delay could have been caused by his Department. I appeal to the Minister to ensure nothing like this happens again with any of the other modules of exempted development regulations. If something requires environmental assessment, the Department should wait for the environmental assessment to be complete and it should give us the regulation in completed form. Will he please make sure the enthusiasm of the Minister of State, who I know, has good intentions on this issue, is curbed a bit so our committee is not asked to do anything in future, in official communications from the Minister or his juniors, that is outside of Standing Orders? I do not think anybody in this House would see any of those requests as unreasonable.

Sentiment score: 0.03