Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If there is a good example of the challenges of the Green Party in government, it is the exchange we are having now. I do not say that in a flippant way because, to be fair to Deputy Matthews, he is tabling a range of amendments that I support and that are very sensible. His party colleague is reading out speaking notes arguing why policies that are, broadly speaking, Green Party policies should not be implemented in the way suggested.

Let me take a step back and make a few general comments before I comment on some of the amendments. This Bill has been presented to us as a once-in-a-generation reform of the planning system to clarify and consolidate existing laws and make the planning system fit for future planning challenges. The built environment, the urban environment, is one of the four largest emitters of greenhouse gases, as the Minister of State knows, along with energy, transport and agriculture. The Minister of State is right that we have legally binding emissions reduction targets across every sector, including the sector of the built environment, but we do not have a roadmap or clear, statutory requirements through our planning system to achieve that objective. While there is much debate on whether we will meet our renewable energy, transport and agriculture emissions targets, as there should be, there is virtually none on the roadmap and the legislative and policy changes that will lead to very dramatic reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions in the built environment in the lead-up to 2030 and then 2050. In fairness to this committee, it has produced reports on this, and the Irish Green Building Council has done good work on it.

With the greatest of respect to the Minister of State, the argument that he should not legislate in our planning system to provide clear, coherent rules that insist on transport-oriented development, not just in high-density urban areas but also in mid- and low-density urban areas in towns and low-density rural areas, beggars belief and makes no sense. It speaks to the fact that every time this committee has brought in representatives from various sections of the Department to discuss what should constitute the roadmap and how we should meet emissions reduction targets across the built environment through planning, building control and building materials, it has noted there is just no plan. This points to one of the very substantial omissions in the Bill. Other than restating existing, very loose and soft policy obligations requiring local authorities to think about climate change and emissions reduction in general, the Bill, in terms of new content, is absolutely silent on several key areas.

We will get to embodied carbon when scrutinising later amendments because that is also key. I will share with the Minister of State my private view, which is not that of my party. One of the great weaknesses of our system is that our housing, planning and transport systems are not integrated. For example, local authorities do not control transport. In fact, there is not just a single external agency. Responsibility is fragmented across a range of agencies. Likewise, in the Minister of State's Department there is no overlap.

Let me give some examples. There are three areas in my constituency and that of the Chair, Deputy Higgins, where this is particularly pertinent: Adamstown, Citywest and Clonburris. It is clear that, even when elements of transport policy are worked into the planning, the implementation and achievement of those objectives just disappears. This is a little like Deputy Matthews's point contrasting promotion and delivery, which are separate.

There should be a definition of hierarchy of road use. An unintentional omission in Deputy Matthews's amendment is that it does not ensure visibility on including people with disabilities and mobility challenges. It is implicit but it would be valuable if it were more explicit.

There should be a statutory requirement for transport-oriented development across all areas. It would apply in different ways. We are going to come back to this same point over and over again. There is a clear differentiation throughout the Bill between the language used by the Government when it really wants something to happen and that used by it when it believes something would be nice to have but that it will not force it. The completely different language is remarkable. When we get to the planning policy statements, I will get into full flow on this. As I pointed out to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, that it is simply not good enough to state local authorities can do what is envisaged anyway in a Bill that is, according to the Government's justification for it, about moving away from leaving things to each local authority towards consistency across the board, although there should be far more clarity on subsidiarity within the local authorities. Given that we have legally binding commitments in our climate action plan, which we support, and commitments based on our Paris climate agreement targets for 2030 and 2050, and the possibility of fines where we do not meet sectoral targets, this is the Bill that should contain the relevant measures on transport-oriented development, embodied carbon and changes to the planning system concerning the reuse and recycling of existing buildings. We will come to the latter separately. I am surprised there is not even some willingness on the part of the Minister of State to have a meeting of minds with his party colleague on a proposal I presume he actually agrees with, but in his position as Minister of State he has to give the official view rather than his own deeply held view. There is no willingness even to contemplate this or revert to us on it on Report Stage. That is remarkable.