Environmental Protection Agency (Emergency Electricity Generation) (Amendment) Bill 2023: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2023-03-08
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Jennifer Whitmore (SD), Wicklow

I heard the Minister's response regarding this amendment meaning there would be a strengthening of the obligations and I do not agree. This amendment states that the Act and its provisions must be considered when this is being done. Those provisions outlined in the Act state that the Minister must "have regard". All I want to see happening is these provisions being taken into account. When this work and the assessments are being done, regard should be had to this section in the climate Act. As I said yesterday in the debate, "having regard" is a very loose term. All it means is that the Minister must take these aspects into consideration. It is not, therefore, hard and fast. It just means the Minister must consider them. I do not understand why less than a year after the climate legislation was introduced and brought into law that the Minister is already trying to bring additional wiggle room into this Bill. I do not, therefore, agree with the Minister's comments. I will be interested to hear what he has to say about the specific phrase, "with regard to", and why he believes that using my amendment to specify that the Act must be considered would strengthen this aspect.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-03-08/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:40+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-03-08