Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not necessarily want to go into the issues concerning Dún Laoghaire but I will deal with the point generally. The amendment relates to section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. Section 28 provides that planning authorities shall have regard to guidelines issued by the Minister in the performance of their planning functions, that is, in the determination of planning applications and in the adoption of development plans. However, section 28 was amended in 2015 by the insertion of a new subsection 1C, which elaborated on the original provisions by introducing a new power whereby the Minister may, within section 28 guidelines, expressly state specific planning policy requirements to be applied by planning authorities or the board, as appropriate, in the exercise of their functions. This provision enables one to distinguish, in terms of the content of the guidelines, between advisory or general commentary on the one hand and specific requirements that have to be mandated by planning authorities in the performance of their planning functions.

This provision was critical to underpinning the revisions of the 2007 apartment standard guidelines which issued in early 2016 and contain specific new requirements that must be applied by planning authorities on minimum apartment sizes, the number of lifts per apartment, car parking provisions, floor to ceiling heights, and the provision of dual aspect apartments thereby ensuring their consistent application by planning authorities. The new revised apartment standard guidelines issued under section 28 represent a change in the national planning policy which must now be implemented by planning authorities in determining of planning applications and the adoption of development plans. The inclusion of the relevant new subsection 1C in section 28 of the 2000 Act further enables future revisions to existing planning guidelines or new planning guidelines to be expressed and applied in a clear manner and will improve consistency and certainty in the planning process generally by distinguishing in policy terms between matters to be determined locally by planning authorities and by national policy set by the Minister of the day. Amendment No. 66 proposes to remove the provisions relating to the incorporation of specific planning policy requirements in ministerial planning guidelines, as introduced in the 2015 Planning and Development (Amendment) Act and therefore I cannot accept it.

There may be some good examples around the country of local authorities that want to do more progressive things and want to factor that in as a requirement or where possible into their development plans. There may also be examples where local authorities look to go in the other direction to try to create a competitive edge for their area, to try to reduce costs for developers or to do things that we might be very uncomfortable with. If we were to have a situation where a Minister could not intervene to ensure there are at least set parameters within which local authorities can set their development plans we could potentially have a completely different quality of design in different parts of cities depending on the opinion that prevails in the council. Dual aspect requirements for apartment design, for example, is a decision that has made it more expensive on one level to produce apartment complexes and perhaps that is something we should examine, but it was a decision that was put in place for good reason. If we were to decide local authorities could just disregard that because they happen to have a different view locally then there would be accusations about a potential race to the bottom and standards that might result in different areas wanting to attract development by changing standards and making it easier to do it and in other areas there might be a race to the top whereby it is much more expensive or less viable to build or develop. The most important thing is that – excluding commercial influence – there needs to be a basic standard above or below which we ensure decisions are made.

For a Minister not to have the power to be able to ensure there is commonality of standards would be very problematic in terms of the unintended, or in some cases the intended, consequences of that. We must ensure there is consistency across local authority areas while at the same time leaving a sufficient level of flexibility for local authorities to be able to do innovative things. That is the reason the legislation was introduced a number of years ago to deal with the issue. That is why, for example, we need it to alter the guidelines in terms of ensuring we have appropriate ceiling height and an appropriate size of apartments in terms of quality of life issues and that we do not have inappropriate or inconsistent decisions being made locally with what we were trying to achieve through better planning and design linked to national policy considerations. I am afraid this is one of the amendments on which I disagree with the Deputy.