Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Flowing from the Mahon tribunal and its findings was a recommendation that an office of planning regulator be established. Unfortunately, the recommendation has not been implemented. In 2016 a budget was provided for the new office, but it remains unexpended. The relevant legislation has been delayed repeatedly and is before the Seanad. I appreciate the Department's involvement in a range of areas in recent years, whether housing, water services or dealing with planning issues such as lapsed planning applications and applications for planning extensions, which has probably taken up its time in terms of dealing with the legislative process. However, given that the Mahon report was published in 2012, although it only became formally available in 2013, it is disappointing that a planning regulator has still not been appointed. I say this as a Deputy who has supported the Government since 2011. The findings of the tribunal relate primarily to matters in my constituency and former politicians in it. As such, the need to get planning processes right is close to my heart. This issue is worthy of attention.

Chairman, given the amount of money this State has had to pay, I wanted to highlight the inappropriate bribery and-or whatever else one wants to call it back in the day by very prominent local and national politicians. I still cannot believe that we are so many years post-fact and still we do not have a planning regulator in place.

Thanks to the work of the Department there is not a huge amount of surprising elements in this part of the Vote other than the Department's failure to expend part of its voluntary and co-operative housing budget, which I understand was €53.3 million in the budgetary year of 2016. The situation was not quite as bad then as it is now, in terms of housing demand, but it was still very bad in an historic sense. Why did the Department not expend the money?