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"Much of the infrastructure that has been developed would indicate that the Bill is a recipe for driving a coach and four through the sustainability that should be at the heart of Government decision making. In my constituency, a new runway at Dublin Airport will compound the imbalance between development in the east and the west while Shannon and Cork are crying out for increased business. The runway at Dublin Airport will compound the Minister's problems, as well as problems in my constituency in terms of congestion. The Bill will not answer the needs of the country given the track record of the Government to date." Unfortunately the bill passed by 69 votes to 29. The Bill now goes to a Select Committee on Environment and Local Government. I don't know if we will still have a chance to get anything in there but we should try. The Greens and Labour voted against, but FG supported it. That's a pity, but maybe we can still convince FG that it can be ammended to meet some of our concerns. FG no doubt, has to be seen to be pro business, but if a project is a bad idea it is BAD for business - like this runway It
seems to me that the critical issue is who decides a proposal is critical
infrastructure. At the very least, I would expect to see some very rigorous
evaluation criteria to ensure that claims from government, such as we
have on this runway that "it's in the national interest" or
"it's for the common good" should be subjected to independent
evaluation. All of Roche's comments were to the effect that all objection
is just delay. He could not grasp the possibility that a planning proposal
by the state (he could believe it of private Another point is that local communities are severely disadvantaged even more by fast tracking these schemes. At the very least, there should have been provision for funding of local groups so they can have some chance against the big boys with piles of (public) money to throw at consultants. |
