Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have been through the vacant housing Bill here and in the Department and also discussed it in the Dáil. It is a worthwhile Bill which is aiding our work, but our approach to it and tackling this issue and an issue raised as Action No. 5.9 of Rebuilding Ireland is two-pronged. First, it deals with the exemptions in respect of what we are putting forward today. We all agreed that ideally commercial buildings such as shop on main streets should be turned back into housing. There is permission for up to nine units because it applies to commercial buildings only. The difficulty the Department had with Fianna Fáil's Bill was that it would allow the sub-division of an existing house. Where would it stop? There are houses all over the country. People would try left, right and centre to make two houses out of one, which would not be conducive to good planning.

This measure refers to a commercial building of a size in which, under all of the regulations, up to nine units could be fitted in. That is what we are allowing for. We are working on a version of the sub-division of a house such that under existing planning laws space can be made available to share a house. The winning proposal in the competition in the Homes for Smart Ageing Universal Design Challenge involved dividing a house in a certain way to allow one person to occupy that house; it is not two houses. It comes under the exempted development legislation and I will bring it forward here later. It has almost passed through pilot stage. It is worth considering. The Fianna Fáil Bill was a little different and we could not agree to it because of the planning authority. We are willing to discuss it further later, but this discussion is about bringing commercial buildings back into use.

The second part which is intended to make it easier and viable for anyone who owns commercial buildings to bring them back into use involves issues concerning fire safety, the building regulations and the heritage regulations which do not make it easy for someone to bring a property back into use. In counties Wicklow and Carlow and other places where I visited properties on the high street that could be brought back into use, it is very complicated and people are afraid to touch the system. In the light of Fianna Fáil's Bill and our own discussions, in late 2007 we set up a working group across all Departments to consider these issues and bring forward new guidelines for local authorities. It was important to have the Department of Culture, Heritage and Local Government on board to make it as easy as possible to cut out some of the unnecessary red tape, not to renege on safety and health measures but to make it easier where we could give better guidance in this area . That is what we are doing. I hope the working document will come out in the next couple of weeks.

It will aid the work that is carried out here. In light of that document, these exemptions are not premature. People can still work away under the existing planning regulations and certification process. Any guidance we have, if it changes that, will kick in for this as well. As of today, it is the existing planning regulations continue to apply. It is not premature. The other document will be useful. The working group, which is chaired by the Department, will hopefully report quite soon. I think it will bring forward many resolutions similar to those discussed by this committee and with which I would agree. It is important that we do it in a co-ordinated way and ensure that all Departments - not just mine - will be involved. I assure the Chairman that the committee's good work on that Bill will not be wasted. It is best to take the two-pronged approach with which we are trying to proceed. That deals with the Chairman's questions. I will move on to those from Senator Boyhan shortly.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin also raised two questions, the first of which relates to his concern regarding whether we are giving a blanket ban to Irish Water. We are absolutely not. Are we confident that we do not go too far in what we are doing here? We are confident because it is exactly the way it was with the local authorities for I do not know how many years but for a long number of years, as long as I can remember. The same exemptions are there. We are not changing any of that. It is just giving Irish Water the same exemptions that were there for local authorities, with which most people were happy. To my knowledge, there have been no cases of concern.

To be very clear, under the section 5 process, people can appeal exemptions. That is the issue that Senator Boyhan raised.