Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11 ============================================================ Patrick O'Donovan (FG), Limerick County In his intervention, Deputy Fitzmaurice mentioned Lough Funshinagh in County Roscommon. I know that area intimately, unfortunately for all of the wrong reasons. The poor misfortunate people there had to put up with years of torture, for want of a better word, because an attempt by the Office of Public Works and Roscommon County Council to relieve flooding was held up and objected to. As Deputy Fitzmaurice referenced, the habitats directive was the principal instrument. The Minister of State, Deputy Moran, has made huge progress in this area. This will be one of the first Christmases that the people there will at least have pumps running and know that the terrible situation is not going to happen to them on Christmas Day again. I agree with the Deputy's wider point about EU simplification, and so does the President of the European Commission. One of the hallmarks of the President of the European Commission's contribution to the state of the Union address was the need for the Union to look at EU simplification. I do not believe that it was ever intended that an instrument originally designed to protect the habitats of flora and fauna would be used as an instrument or a method to allow sewage to flow through people's houses, regardless of the town or village where the flood relief scheme was to take place and regardless of whether there was potable water. We all remember back in the 1990s or the early 2000s the situation with the Galway city water scheme. Galway City Council was the first agent of the State to use imperative reasons of overriding public interest, IROPI. The Deputy will know exactly what I am talking about. When there is an overriding need for public good, we can, as he said, screen out things that would otherwise not be looked favourably upon in an application. However, that is a long and arduous process and it can be appealed. I agree with the Deputy about our infrastructure, whether it is in the building of a road or a railway or the laying of a water main, such as the one being discussed from north of Limerick to Dublin. All of these things are being objected to by people for spurious reasons, in many cases. The Deputy knows as well as I do that, as soon as someone mentions the Aarhus Convention, they have carte blanche to go the whole way to the Supreme Court. Many people here do not agree with my analysis or the Deputy's, and that is another problem. If legislation was brought before the Dáil tomorrow in terms of harmonising or simplifying Ireland's interpretation of the habitats directive, I am not so sure that everybody who claims to be on the same side as us would all of a sudden jump to that. Certainly, when it comes to the European institutions, we definitely know that is not the case. In general, the Deputy's point about EU simplification is one that the Minister for agriculture, the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, others and I entirely agree with. --- 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/dail/2025-12-11/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-11