Development (Strategic Gas Reserve) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-16
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Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland

Amendment No. 18 seeks to ensure that if there are going to be environmental impact assessments, they will include the evaluations of the vulnerability of the development to risks of major accidents or disasters relevant to the project and the direct or indirect impacts of the development on human health, safety and the well-being of the adjacent communities. That is not me making up some language. That was a recommendation of the committee and those are factors within environmental impact assessment reports. There are characteristics commonly used in environmental impact assessment reports and the decision was made in the drafting of this Bill to not include those established areas of impact assessment, such as the risk of major accidents and disasters and the direct and indirect impacts of the development on human health, safety and the well-being of adjacent communities. Why would we have an environmental impact assessment that does not include these two factors, specifically when the committee, as well as local communities who spoke to the committee, called for those to be included?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:17+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-16