Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is fine. I thank everybody for their presentations. In particular, the broad approach Mr. Mandal outlined from the Dublin Democratic Planning Alliance is one I have advocated for a long time. If we are able to incorporate the concerns and recommendations of the IPI and CCMA into the legislation, we will end up with a better system than that which existed pre-SHDs. Many of us asked for some of the changes that the CCMA and IPI are now asking for back then. We could end up with even better legislation if we take the advice of the planning professionals in the room.

I fully endorse Conor Norton and the IPI's call for greater use of place-making. The best way to reduce the volume of judicial reviews, third-party opinions and appeals is to involve people in the community at the earliest stage and place-making is the way to do that. Mr. Parlon and Mr. Benson would do well to start including that kind of call in their proposals. We all want to make sure good quality planning applications are submitted and approved as early as possible and the shift to place-making is key.

I will single out three of the CCMA's concerns because I share them. It might help if the association came back to us prior to Committee Stage with suggested wordings for those because it has much more experience on the legislative end than some of us.

Specifically on the issue of resourcing for the pre-planning application and head 6, subsection (10), that one-year period after the pre-planning and before the application seems exceptionally long. I cannot see any rationale for it, and the Department did not provide any when asked about it on Tuesday.

I share the concern of the CCMA with respect to head 8, section 33(2), on the restrictions around requests for additional information post the substantive application. I am particularly concerned that this could result in a series of legal challenges, particularly for failure to meet some of our obligations under European environmental or water directives if additional information cannot be requested on those areas.

With respect to the Construction Industry Federation, I share the desire of Mr. Benson and Mr. Parlon to see the maximum possible level of new home building. It is disappointing that Mr. Benson's submission does not deal with the elephant in the room but, thankfully, Mr. Parlon dealt with it, that is, the very low level of commencements on the grants of permission under SHD. The figure for commencements at scheme level is only 34%, but it is actually only 14% on an individual unit level. While we may have different views on why those commencements have not happened, the fact that Mr. Benson's submission is silent on that undermines the willingness of some of us to engage with the other issues that he raises because lack of commencements is a much bigger problem than judicial reviews or third party opinions.

My questions are few because most of the issues have been dealt with in the submissions. If the CCMA has an indication of the kind of additional resourcing its members need to be able to able to cope with this I would like to hear some thoughts on that. If Dr. Norton has any additional detail on the best way to advance place-making - I know the IPI has been looking at models beyond the local area plans - and he can share some of that with us at this stage that would be really helpful. My next question is to Mr. Benson. I share his desire to see the level of judicial reviews reduced but would he agree that the best way to do that is to have greater public participation in place-making and planning at the earliest stage? As a result of that, for example, would it not be good to see in this legislation some level of public participation at the pre-planning stage rather than provisions that try to restrict people's access to appeals, judicial reviews, particularly when they are concerned that plans are not in the interests of our cities or its citizens?