The Technological Universities Act provides for that.

I move amendment No. 80: In page 57, between lines 4 and 5, to insert the following: “(f) trade union representatives of both academic and professional staff;”.

The Minister of State is speaking to the amendments made in the Dáil. Senator Boylan is referring to our proposed Seanad amendments. There are two sets of amendments being discussed.

Amendment No. 1 seeks the deletion of the new subsection (6) inserted via the Dáil amendments into section 32B of the principal Act. That subsection inserted by the Minister provides that a request from a large-scale residential development applicant may include a request that the meeting be treated as a meeting for the purposes of an application under a section 32I. Amendment No. 2 seeks the deletion of the section inserting the new sections 32H and 32L into the principal Act. These new sections 32H to 32L to be i…

That is why I must speak to the full grouping now.

Yes. I was making the point that it would have been useful to have the Minister of State rather than me outlining what is happening with the sections to be inserted, and where our permission for them to be inserted has been requested. We would have been clear about what they were doing.

Yes. That is what I spoke to in outlining the amendments.

As I understand it, my amendments Nos. 1 and 2 seek the removal of measures to be inserted by the Minister in group 3. Is that correct? I am not using my speaking slot now but seeking clarification in respect of the grouping. It is the problem and may be why what the Minister of State outlined is disjointed compared with the grouped amendments. My amendments respond to the principle on flexibility. My amendments are responding to that principle on flexibility and I cannot not have my opportunity to speak to them. T…

Should I be speaking to amendments Nos. 1 and 2 within the discussion on group 3? Is that the case? Will we agree that I can discuss them then?

Regarding the amendments in group 2, then, these relate to the provisions in the Planning and Development Acts and the idea of the ministerial directions regarding statutory plans. I will be brief. As part of a topic we will discuss in more detail later, namely, what has been an extraordinary, relentless and systematic removal and diminution of power at local level, one of the major starting points in that regard was when these ministerial directions were brought in by the former Minister, Eoghan Murphy. Those regu…

Seanad Report Stage amendments Nos. 1 and 2 have been moved into the next grouping.

The amendments were published last Friday.

I will speak to my amendments Nos. 1 and 2. The Minister of State used the word "flexibility". His own speech gives an example of how ambiguous that can be. He has described how he told us he was going to do something and that we should not be surprised by what is being done when it is being done very suddenly and quickly. However, he did not tell us what he was going to do, just that he would be making changes. I want to be clear for the record that all 48 pages of these amendments were published last Friday. It i…

I apologise. I will skip over that. Since we are only seeing these groups at short notice, we have to anticipate. I will move to amendment No. 13. In effect, this set of amendments addresses the flexibility piece. The Minister of State talked about losing a case and, as there are now limitations on the flexibility we can have, we need to change the law again. It is part of a very worrying dynamic, namely, if we are found to be in breach of the law, then we change the law. That is what we see again and again. That i…

The fact the Government has withdrawn, under extreme pressure, one of the problematic amendments is welcome, but it highlights again how incredibly ill-considered the changes are. In the tiny window the public has had to react to this, or since Friday, they have seen the issues with the changes. They regard the proposed changes as an attack on their participation and ability to effect change. One environmental NGO has described the changes as a black hole in respect of judicial reviews. There is a dysfunctional eff…

I wish to clarify that it is the chairman of An Bord Pleanála who is a former official in the Department and it is the vice chair who has stepped down. The wider investigation continues.

No matter how the Minister of State says it, the Government published the amendments on Friday, so this is the first time we are seeing these proposals in writing. Someone simply saying that he or she aspires to do something in the future is not the same as tabling something. That this is now a maritime Bill as well is just the latest example of that. Amendments Nos. 14 to 21, inclusive, seek the deletion of the proposed new subsections to section 3 of the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021, or the MAP Act. These Gove…

I second the amendment.

I second the amendment.

I move amendment No. 3: In page 16, to delete lines 31 to 38, to delete pages 17 and 18, and in page 19 to delete lines 1 to 7.