Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2025-07-15
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Patricia Stephenson (SD), Labour Panel

I will speak to amendments Nos. 27 and 28 together in the interests of time. Government amendment No. 27 amends section 410(1)(c) of the 2024 Act which is concerned with the continued vesting of powers, in this instance, specifically, for the compulsory acquisition of land for strategic gas infrastructure. The Minister's amendment is simply to change the reference to the Commission for Energy Regulation to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. The purpose of our amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 27 is simply to delete paragraph (c) of section 410(1), given concerns around the power for compulsory acquisition of land for development of what is referred to as "strategic gas infrastructure"; the already extraordinary powers in the 2024 Act and the lack of safeguards around them; and in particular the LNG provisions in the 2024 Act which were made at the last minute when that Act was going through the Oireachtas, without proper legislative scrutiny, as we are again seeing here today.
The dysfunctional approach of this Government is to allow for more data centres where these are likely to use up any renewable energy we can generate, and the deficit then in energy supply will drive ongoing deficits in fossil fuels, including gas. These consequentially dysfunctional and highly damaging aspects of the 2024 Act are of extreme concern in the context of interdependent climate and biodiversity crises and, in fact, pose a triple planetary crisis when pollution is also taken into account within that whole scope. The intent here is to highlight such dysfunction and concern on the potential impacts under the 2024 Act. This amendment seeks to prevent the ongoing vesting of powers for compulsory acquisition of land to facilitate so-called strategic gas infrastructure. That should remain the case until such a time as an improved response to our energy management requirements is indeed in place so that the powers under the 2024 Act cannot be exploited without proper regard for a just transition to a sustainable energy future. Government amendment No. 28 will effectively do the same thing to replace the name of the utility and provide for an ongoing vesting of powers in respect of maritime sites, again, for strategic gas infrastructure.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-07-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:03+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-07-15