Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to have the opportunity to ask a question. Mr. Neenan said that no Department or office of the State has come back to him with their consideration of his submission on the heads of the Bill to counteract the court decision made in 2019. I ask him to provide more detail about the application for leave for substitute consent which spent 14 months with An Bord Pleanála awaiting decision. Again, we see impact of the lack of a statutory time limit for An Bord Pleanála to make decisions. We see this in the context of housing, in the commercial sector and now in this sector, which is under immense pressure. Even with the limited options that remain open for application, it is not good enough that an arm of the State has been dealing with this application for 14 months. The Government has committed to a planning reform Bill in the autumn. I call on this committee and others to offer their support to ensure that An Bord Pleanála will be subject to a statutory time period in which to make decisions on planning applications.

I refer to the working group and its consideration of the just transition. Notwithstanding the difficulties associated with the national just transition programme, to date at least, the latter has failed to help the workforce and communities in the regions impacted by the acceleration of decarbonisation and the sectors such as the one represented today. The European Commission is devising a just transition programme and up to €80 million will be available. Different stakeholders, including regions, local authorities and regional transition boards have made submissions to that. The Government is in the process of submitting a territorial plan to the Commission; it may have already done so. We have not had sight of that. I ask the committee to contact the relevant Departments with a view to making that public in order to ensure that we have an input into it. It needs to have the full support of all representatives who will be impacted by such a territorial plan, irrespective of whether it is accepted, rejected or amended. It should not be submitted without our knowledge of its contents. I ask the committee to raise that matter also.