A senior official of the Department of the Environment has conceded that the Government's Strategic Infrastructure Bill is likely to be challenged in the High Court because of its implications for public participation in the planning process.
Oonagh Buckley, principal officer in the department's planning division, said it was "in the lap of the gods" whether such a legal action would succeed, though the advice of Attorney General Rory Brady SC was that the proposed legislation would be upheld.
Under the Bill, which is to be debated in the Seanad next week, all major projects deemed to be "strategic" in nature would be exempted from going through the normal planning process at local authority level and instead would go straight to An Bord Pleanála.
Ms Buckley told the annual conference of the Irish Planning Institute in Sligo that the proposed second terminal at Dublin airport would be covered by the legislation, as well as motorways, rail projects, waste disposal facilities and other major pieces of infrastructure.
She said it would be up to the appeals board to decide whether a project was "strategic". After that, there would be a 10-week period of consultation with the relevant local authority, while members of the public would only have six weeks to make their views known.
The board would hold pre-application discussions with the promoters of strategic projects and, once an application was lodged, it would be required to make a decision within 18 weeks, which would be a challenge, though she believed it was "achievable".
The Bill provided that anyone could challenge a board decision in the High Court without having to prove a special interest in the project. This was in line with the public participation provisions of the Aarhus Convention, which the State signed but has not yet ratified. However, An Taisce chairman Frank Corcoran believed the Bill would ultimately be struck down by the European Court of Justice.
