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

I know I am speaking about real-life cases but if we take the case of Larkfield House one thing the developer has been able to do, and this is a matter of public record, is use the planning permission retention process to prolong the period under which the building is illegally occupied. As Ms Neary knows, it has been fully occupied since 2018. This has created a mechanism by which through repeated application for retention, and engagement with the local authority, a building has been able to be occupied outside of planning and building control regularisation. It still has not been regularised on either foot. The point I am raising is that it would be a real shame if we added another tool for this category of developer, and I hope they are very small in number, who use the system to prolong the period under which a building could be illegally occupied. We need to have a safeguard in there. This is not an argument against a regularisation procedure; it is to make sure it cannot be open to abuse in a way that retention is at present by some building developers.