Michael Fitzmaurice: Habitats Directive a 'straitjacket' on projects

First of all I want to be very clear that I'm all for speeding up any infrastructure in the line of what government needs to do, be it in roads, be it in rail, and housing. And there's a few things, and I'm trying to just get my head around parts of this bill, in relation to is this bill solely for government and semi-state, what I'm trying to say is like will some wind developer somewhere be able to avail of that in some part of the country that's tormenting some communities, or is it just for government projects, be it roads, be it hospitals, and to be great to get clarification on that Minister, which are official sometimes, if that could be explained, because I just cannot get my head around that. I have no problem if the state needs to, in a bill, if the state needs to be able to build hospitals or build roads or whatever, that the state needs to build quicker, but the one part of it that I do worry about, and has been mentioned before when I spoke to you before about this, what this bill seems to do is push the critical infrastructure up at the top of the pile to get looked at, that's my understanding of it, and that's fine, but like we have on board Penala, and I see ordinary people out there, be it quarries, you need quarries, whether people like it or don't, to be able to build infrastructure that no-one can't themselves, and we're waiting, and there's people waiting that there's applications in on board Penala, and Oiley gets this letter out, another few months gone, another few months, and another few months, and it's disgraceful the way that they're treating, say, an ordinary private person that way, but with the best will in the world, and we get, when you put in an application for planning, and it's good to get it up to the top of the pile, but if we continue with the Habitats Directive in its present form, it's God help any Minister to be honest about it, because the rigmarole you have to go through, and I'm dealing with the Habitats Directive for the last 20 years or more, and what has happened in the Habitats Directive, it started off as a directive, and then it started going into DCG, and it's starting to put you in a straitjacket, straitjacket, straitjacket, and straitjacket, and with the best will in the world to any department, and we get frustrated when things aren't delivered. Go to a few years ago, down to Lough Talt, and Gerry Grant was actually in Irish Water at the time, and we had to go for a 6.3 or 6.4, imperative reasons of overriding public interest to Europe, and that is, no matter how you go, three or four years, and unless we get some legislation put in place, and I would have mentioned it before to Ministers about when Eamon Ryan was here, the time we needed the jet engines for basically keeping the power on or having back up, I remember I think it was the Bordnemona Bill that came in here one night, and it was a Bill that basically went over all the Habitats Directive and you could drive on, and I think it was for three years and you renew it again or whatever, you wouldn't have to be doing EIAs, appropriate assessments, all this crack that you have to go on with, and he was able to get that legislation through, because obviously there was amber on our electricity at the time, and it was put through here one night. I think for a government for housing projects, for the likes of Irish water, if they need sewer and water, if you haven't sewer and water and roads, you ain't going to be lending. If we don't go down that road, and probably it will be a clash with Europe, because even in Germany a snail was holding up things, but I remember that time, the madness that's going on in some of these, where there was a certain type of snail that was supposed to be in locked telt, was gone for I don't know how many years, but you still had to do all the rigmarole, and they were being blocked. Even though the pipe was coming out, and Saigal County Council at the time were putting out the water daily, Irish water were turning that pipe, not near the lake, but out here 800 metres away, they were using the water, but you had to get an extraction licence, and then to get that extraction licence you were being blocked. I spoke to Gerry Grant one evening, and we went through it. That's costing money, and it's slowing jobs down three, four years, it's ferocious, and there's one thing, Minister, I would ask all your Ministers to do, it's the bane of our life now, try and extend an airport, try and extend a port, try and do a road. No matter what infrastructure you're going to have now, even youngsters in parts like where there's a place designated now, within 15 kilometres of that, they basically call it a screening out area. I saw a place in Llanberton where a young couple, and there was no designation near them, were building a house, and it was sent out under a fight that you needed, or it was sent out that they needed an EIA and a screening out and all this, and we were saying, why? Because the drain at the back of that house or near that house was going into the sinking river, was going in up through Sleave, heading to Dunmore to another river, was heading into Dunmore to another river, was going up to the River Clare and was going into the River Carib, 40 miles away. That's what frustrates me, I get so frustrated over watching things like that, and then that young couple, to do all that, it's a couple of grand more at least at the time, it's way more now. You see, the problem, when we were in the bogs, we were in our ground, and we were able to stand our battle, and even though people accused us of all types of things, we were able to say this is our ground, but a government has to adhere to whatever legislation is in front of them, rightly or wrongly, but unless you, in my opinion, do that, we can push it to the top of the heap, but to get to the top of the heap in the EIA screening out appropriate assessment and all of that, that's where I fear is a major problem, and as I say, on principle, I'd like clarification on that for private operators, that's the one part I'd just like, Minister, if your officials get a chance, I'm not putting you on the spot tonight, but I would like to know that, but for the likes of Irish Water, for the ESB, for all of them, we'll say semi-states and government bodies, I think we need to be able to deliver stuff faster, because in a lot of cases the money is there, but we can't build it, and that's sickening altogether. One time ago we hadn't the money, and we might be able to build it, and now we're gone vice versa. So I'd ask you if you could do that. Thank you very much.