The new Planning Bill

The new Planning Bill, designed to hinder access to justice to challenge bad planning and environmental decisions, is problematic.

The decision-maker has been increasingly under resourced, particularly in environmental decision making, as its workload increased.

This Bill will not fix that problem but is designed to ensure bad environmental decisions go unchallenged.

I objected to the manner in which the government is progressing bills through the Dáil without even properly explaining them – like a parent bird regurgitating food into the eternally open mouths of its fledglings.

The Ceann Comhairle made no ruling when the minister didn’t reply.