Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for his indulgence. This will be my last intervention because I must depart.

The Minister can quibble about two, three or even four years but if the thing commences then there is not a problem. We want to see commencements. The Minister has made the valid point that our amendment does not put a limit on the renewals. If I were to table this amendment on Report Stage then I would precisely insist on that. Insofar as the Minister has said he is going to do that so there would be no extension beyond ten years, that is welcome but to my mind, ten years is too long unless there is an extremely good reason. The Minister can legislate for that as well if there are some exceptional circumstances. Covid-19 was referenced by the Minister. All sorts of exceptional things were done during the Covid-19 period, even in the planning area, to acknowledge the exceptional circumstances involved. Ten years is too long, however. As we say, we have got all these sites, as we have, right now in the face of a housing emergency which are being sat on. They are not being activated. We need them activated. Given the severity of the housing crisis we are now facing, we cannot give developers the latitude to sit on them for ten years, in my view, unless there is an extremely good reason. I cannot think of many reasons that would justify that. Furthermore, all of us need to grapple with the question of what we should do about them lodging a planning application and then, after that expires after whatever the time period might be, them just putting in a different planning application even though they have as little intention of developing that as they did the previous one. We have to deal with this matter because it is being abused wholesale. Moreover, the Government itself, in reports it has done, has acknowledged this. It is not the only problem but it is a significant problem and we all know and have evidence that it is. I say ten years is too long and the Minister can say our amendment does not quite capture it.