Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-20
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Malcolm Noonan (GP), Agricultural Panel

A narrative has emerged that those who want checks and balances on climate, environment and nature have some sort of a degrowth agenda. Certainly that could not be further from the truth. Section 7 of this Bill represents a fundamental attack on the provision of the climate action Act that was passed in the Dáil in 2021 with the support of 129 Members of the Dáil at that time. Five years later, the Critical Infrastructure Bill means that any proposal that is designated as critical infrastructure will no longer have its climate impact examined, be it good or be it bad. Today the Government is seeking to repeal a central aspect of the climate action Act by the back door. We can just see how this might happen. Section 15 of the climate action Act 2021 puts a legal duty on public bodies to perform their functions in a manner consistent with the climate Act. It puts a climate duty on all public bodies. We did this similarly in the last Government with the biodiversity duty under the Wildlife Act, including the National Transport Authority, NTA, An Coimisiún Pleanála, the Minister's own Department of public expenditure, and all of them. Under section 7 of this Bill, when a project is designated as a programme of critical infrastructure, that climate duty no longer applies. It could be the Coolglass wind farm or it could be the Gluas project in Galway. It could be a project that is going to have a negative impact on the environment but in this case the climate Act no longer applies.
We cannot use the climate Act any more to say that this is actually going to be beneficial, this is going to take cars off the road, put people onto public transport and reduce our carbon emissions while giving people sustainable transport options. That is what this Bill is doing and we fundamentally object to it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:58+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-20