Vol. 530 No. 2
50 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources further to Parliamentary Question No. 41 of 23 November 2000, the level of public consultation which is expected; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3382/01]
As I stated in my reply to the question put by the Deputy on 23 November last, the issue of whether to proceed with the application, which will have to be accompanied by a new EIS, lies with Dublin Port Company. No such EIS has as yet been submitted to my Department. Should the company produce a new EIS a fresh public consultation period and process will commence.
The public consultation procedure will be as follows. The Dublin Port Company will be required to publish notice of its proposals in at least two national newspapers. My Department will prepare the notice and specify the newspapers in which it should be published. A development such as this would be subject to the European Communities (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations, 1989 to 1999. The public consultation period for an application requiring an EIS is one month and a copy of the EIS must also be provided by the applicant to the consultative bodies named in the Foreshore (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations, 1990, SI 220 of 1990.
During this one month period the general public would be free to make representations and submissions concerning the proposed infill to me. The port company would then be allowed an opportunity to comment on these before the final report is made to me. That report would detail the proposal, the process that has been gone through, the submissions and commentary on them and recommend whether to grant a permission and, if so, under what conditions.
Furthermore, in the event that the company decides to proceed and carry out a further EIS, I expect that it will enter into consultation with local groups as part of the assessment process and that copies of the EIS, when published, will be forwarded to all groups who made objection to the proposal under the public consultation period completed on 1 November 1999.
