I wish the Ceann Comhairle and everyone here a happy Christmas.

Sentiment score: 0.75

I do not object to the Minister's plans but I have a few queries, including on the agricultural side. I welcome the exemptions. There are new regulations requiring farmers to collect soiled water. The exemption that they can put down a tank to gather that soiled water is a help. It is to be hoped they will get a targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, grant for it. That will help water quality right around the country, which is the bottom line. The one part of it I am trying to fathom is that a lot of the councils, when they are giving exemptions, look at whether there is a special area of conservation, SAC, or natural heritage area, NHA, within 15 km of a property. If they start with that craic when it comes to the exemption, there will not be many parts of the country that will get it. I ask the Minister or his Department to give a direction to councils that common sense must prevail here. A person putting down a tank is saving soiled water from going into a field or somewhere it should not go. This is a good provision but it needs to be used in a common-sense way by planners when they are looking at the exemptions. Farmers have no problem going for the exemption but in the west of Ireland, there is a huge number of designated areas, whether SACs or NHAs. If people have to go screening out and undertaking environmental impact assessments, EIAs, and appropriate assessments, when the whole basis of what they are doing is to protect against soiled water by having a tank, then it is contradicting the whole purpose of the regulation. Will the Minister work with his Department to give a direction to the councils in this regard? I welcome the provision regarding sizes. This is a good thing for the country. While the exemption is for the agricultural sector, it will help with water quality, as the Minister outlined in his speech. The other measure concerns the changeover of buildings to allow a pub or whatever to be made into a residential property. Anything that will help with housing supply is a good thing. Anything that will give a roof over somebody's head is a good thing. We should welcome that people can do that without going through eight or ten weeks of rigorous planning requirements. I would love to see the croí cónaithe scheme simplified a small bit to speed it up but it is a good grant. We need to praise things when they are good and be good enough to say something is good. Something I ask the Minister to look at is an issue that is very frustrating. In a document I sent in to the Minister's Department, I pointed out that seven years is the time within which people must have compliance with planning or if there is a non-compliance order. There are chimneys in old houses that cracked, were taken down and then slates were put up. That is a normal thing people did, using cop on as I would call it. They will not get an exemption because that is not in compliance with the house that was built 150 years ago. I ask the Minister to look at things like that. I welcome the regulations.

Sentiment score: 0.27