Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2025: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-17 ============================================================ Alan Dillon (FG), Mayo I thank all the Senators for their valuable contributions. They have been very helpful. It was a good opportunity to discuss this before it moves to Committee Stage. I welcome the broad support I have received on this Bill. As I said earlier, it is important to reflect what we hear on the ground with regard to the time it takes for decisions to be made, not just for large scale developments, but also for minor proposed changes to an installation that currently requires a full licence review. In our current climate, that is not practical or sufficient and it needs to change. This Bill addresses the problematic issues through improving the legislation and that is central to what we are trying to achieve. It also protects the rights of everyone to participate in that licence application because there is nothing in this Bill that reduces the EPA's independence and that cannot be stressed enough. We want to ensure that the exemptions are transposed from EU law. That is the transposition from the environmental impact assessment directive and that mirrors what we have within our extensive planning process. We should not have one without the other. Very strict guidelines will be put in place and they will not affect or replace any of our planning laws. We have done extensive work in the past year or two and I acknowledge Senator Noonan's work on the Planning and Development Act. It is the third largest piece of legislation to have gone through both Houses of the Oireachtas. It is important and, in one sense, this Bill does not dilute our obligations to that. There is transparency, fairness and opportunities for people to have their say. It is really important that prescribing timelines for proposed determinations in secondary legislation provide the necessary flexibility so that we ensure that we can achieve even shorter timelines as agreed. Senator Conway made reference to the fish kill incident in the River Blackwater. I am sure that we all agree in this House that it was significant and deeply regrettable. Three inspection teams were deployed to the regulated sites within an hour of the notification. That demonstrates the EPA's example and that it did react. However, as the Senator said earlier, the evidence found that there was no link to any of the industrial sites in close proximity. The report that investigated this significant incident recommended that emergencies like the one in County Cork require a greater inter-agency approach in how we share information, communicate and respond. A new protocol will be put in place by quarter 1 of this year. That is an important learning from what that event presented because still not having a root cause leads to much speculation. There are lessons for everyone with regard to how the root cause of such a kill could not be found. It left everyone dismayed. The protection of the environment remains paramount within this legislation. Senator Noonan mentioned the latte levy. We are working towards the publication of the second revision of the circular economy strategy. That will go to Cabinet next week. I hope that we will continue to make substantial improvements with regard to our reuse and recycling to ensure that materials are in circulation for a lot longer. With regard to the latte levy and the reduction of single-use cups, we want to continue to make a real impact on the usage of single-use cups. There are too many in circulation. The Oireachtas took a lead on the bring-your-own-cup initiative. We need to see more of that in our public buildings, cafes and restaurants. Anyone sitting in should be afforded the use of a reusable cup rather than a single-use cup. It is a practical measure. We need to look at the infrastructure and not just a national levy. I spoke to people in Killarney and have engaged extensively on this issue. We are reviewing it with the hope that we can make substantial inroads. We have seen the benefits of the deposit return scheme for plastic bottles and aluminium cans and we want do to more. I will work with Senator Noonan on that. In conclusion, I acknowledge the broad support for this Bill. With regard to Senator Byrne's comments around anti-dumping initiatives. It is an important issue. Local authorities are responsible for how they manage, police and enforce it. As a Government, we have supported them with funding for mobile CCTV and other deterrents and enforcement measures. We will continue to do that. I will take Senator Byrne's suggestion to increase fines to act as an even greater deterrent back to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and his officials. I thank the Members for their time. I look forward to moving this Bill to Committee Stage. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:38+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-17