Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome the legislation that is before us today. It effectively marks the end of the SHD processes. It allows communities once again to have access to a two-stage decision-making process and it reverses the attempt to remove them from that decision-making process. I think it is another example of how the new Government is doing housing differently from the previous Government.

I echo many of the comments which have been made by, to be fair, those in all parties that this was used in many cases in regard to, and perhaps became more about, site values and planning approvals rather than being about commencements. Deputy Gould asked how many affordable homes were lost because of the lack of commencements. I suppose the simple answer to that is “None” because the previous version of Part V had no ambition on affordable housing and it was purely a social housing model. The doubling of the obligation on developers under Housing for All in regard to Part V, which will now have 20% - that is, 10% social and 10% affordable - is another example of us leaning into the State being the main provider of homes, and the aggressive programme of delivery of public housing says that too.

There was one element of the SHD legislation that I thought did work. This new legislation will see a return of powers to local authorities but it will see a withdrawal of powers from local authority members in the area of the statutory consultation with councillors. From now on, if councillors wish to make an observation, they will have to make a separate submission themselves. I often thought one of the benefits of the SHD legislation was that a collective decision or collective discussion could be brought from the local authority through the submission made by the planning authority to An Bord Pleanála. I would like to see that retained either in guidelines or in legislation. It meant that broader middle ground of opinion on an application could be represented, and it meant we did not have each local authority member making his or her own submission, which they are obviously entitled to do.

There are also ad hocarrangements around how local authority members make submissions in some local authorities. I know Dublin City Council is very good at bringing forward applications to area committees, although that is not the case everywhere. In Dublin City Council, local authority members do not pay the planning fee, but in other local authorities they do. We need to standardise the process around how local authority members consult large-scale developments as that will strengthen the Bill.

Overall, I very much welcome the legislation. I welcome the work that has been done on it by the officials and I look forward to it being implemented as quickly as possible by the Dáil and the Seanad to ensure we reach the deadlines that are outlined in the Bill.