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

This legislation is quite significant. Many Deputies will have spoken in the Chamber on the importance of this legislation, and how it effectively gives back to the local authorities by making them the first port of call for planning applications.

The strategic housing development, SHD, process deprived local communities of the opportunity to contribute to the planning process and gave them very limited recourse to appeal, a judicial review being the only option in many cases. I thank the Minister for brining forward this legislation to bring an end to the SHD process. It is crucial. The previous Government relied far too much on the market for the types of homes that were delivered and on the belief that a fast-track process in itself would deliver homes. That has proved not to be the case. This is important legislation. It will end the SHD process and ensure local communities have a voice in the planning process.

The Minister and I attended a community consultation with residents in Santry, it being a community that has seen significant development but that has had very little opportunity to contribute at the planning stage. What was being provided was largely buy-to-let properties. Those in the community wanted more housing to accommodate families with children and the people who lived in their community but what was delivered did not satisfy that. I thank the Minister for coming to Santry to discuss these proposals with the community and talking through what this legislation would achieve.

The wording of my amendment differs slightly from amendment No. 43. Amendment No. 43 seeks to include community organisations or representatives in the planning process. A difficulty with that, with which other parties might also have a problem, is that it is difficult to define that. My amendment seeks to use the structure known as the Public Participation Network, PPN, as one body that might be consulted. There are different ways of consulting and involving the community. If the Minister has a difficulty with some elements of my amendment, he might consider it and his officials might be able to improve on it. Using both the PPN secretariat and the PPN itself would be one method of including the community at an early stage in the planning process without that in any way delaying the overall timelines. We all know those timelines are very important. It would not be my intention to delay the process in any way. My amendment seeks to include communities, iron out problems early in the process and ensure communities have a voice and can contribute to the process, which the Minister have provided, at an early stage. I thank him for that and ask him to consider the amendments.