Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

-----to rush a Bill through the Dail by Christmas? Members will stay here until midnight tonight, but the Minister will not accede to our request for a report in three months time.

Local communities rarely object to planning applications but object to major developments because of traffic issues, overlooking and other major concerns. I do not believe that removing that stage of the process will have any impact on bringing housing on stream quicker.

We all know that the developers have been on strike. They have been on strike for the past year and a half. They have held on to the planning permissions that they have, not progressed them and waited for prices to rise. Even NAMA, in which the Government is involved, has plenty of land that it could have developed over the past number of years but it let the housing crisis escalate. Maybe that is why the Minister is not keen to do carry out a report because a serious report might emphasise these aspects more.