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

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 4, between lines 36 and 37, to insert the following:

“Amendment of section 28 (Ministerial guidelines) of Principal Act 3.Section 28 of the Principal Act (as amended by section 20 of the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2018) is amended by the deletion of subsection (1C).”.

We have just come from the remaining Second Stage debate of this legislation. Deputies across the Chamber, both Government and Opposition, highlighted many of the difficulties with the scale and nature of large-scale developments under the SHD process, many of which are subject to judicial review and eventually overturned. There seemed to be a sense from Members that this legislation, in and of itself, will resolve that problem but, unfortunately, it will not. The reason is that a number of significant changes made by the previous Government, in parallel with the SHD process, will remain in place. It is worthwhile considering these because, if we do not deal with them now, we will have to return to them at a future stage, just as we had to come back and deal with SHD.

As members will know, when Deputy Kelly was Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government in the dying days of the most recent Fine Gael-Labour Party Government, he passed legislation making very significant changes to planning law that allowed a Minister, without any vote of the Oireachtas or local authority, to make substantial changes to planning law by way of decree. There could, of course, be a consultation but, ultimately, it was within the gift of the Minister. Previously, ministerial guidelines were made by way of advice and major planning policy was made by legislation or city and county development plans. I have no objection to a Minister or a Government wanting to set standards and have consistency. My view is that if they do that, they should have the approval of the Oireachtas and that, therefore, there should be a vote and not a unilateral declaration.

The mandatory ministerial, or section 28, guidelines have been used only twice, as most members will know, both times by the then Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Eoghan Murphy. One time related to building heights, removing the ability of a local authority in a city and county development plan to have any height restrictions. I am absolutely not against height in appropriate locations, but I believe the city and county development plan is the best place to have those discussions. More controversially, the then Minister introduced a two-tier system of design standards for apartments, where the original 2015 guidelines by the Department, which are very respectable in my view, apply to build-to-purchase apartments, and an inferior set of design standards was put in place as an option for build-to-rent. Some build-to-rent, because it is higher end, sticks to the better standards but most do not. That means renters get less natural light, less storage and a higher volume of student apartments in the development, and a higher number of apartments is permissible to core-shaft, whether that is a lift or a stairwell.

The problem is the national planning framework rightly wants compact growth, with far more people to live in our urban centres with greater densities, which means greater levels of apartment living, yet it is virtually impossible to buy an apartment in our urban centres, particularly in Dublin, because of the astronomically high development costs. That means that if we want people to live in the urban centres, particularly Dublin centre, they have to be able to rent, yet we are saying they should accept lower design standards. That is completely contrary to the national planning framework. I know that many members of the Minister's party share the concerns I and others have about that two-tier set of standards.

These amendments will remove the ability of a Minister to introduce mandatory ministerial guidelines in the manner Deputy Kelly introduced them. Such changes should be made only with the democratic imprimatur of the Houses of the Oireachtas. The amendments will also repeal both sets of mandatory ministerial guidelines introduced by Eoghan Murphy. We tabled legislation on this previously and had a debate, where Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party opposed that legislation. If we do not improve the design standards for rental apartments, which we need more of in order that people can live and rent in the urban centres, and if we do not deal with the issue of heights and what the best way to determine heights and densities is, something on which we are still waiting for the Department's guidelines for local authorities, we will have the same problems, even within the large-scale residential development process, which will lead to more judicial reviews at the latter end, something most of us would prefer not to see. We want to see the best planning decisions made by the local authorities, with people on either side having the right to appeal to the board.

I urge members to consider getting rid of these regressive changes introduced by Eoghan Murphy and Deputy Kelly, in both the previous Government and the Government before it. Let us do exactly what the Minister said he wants to do, although he will not do it fully if he does not support these amendments, namely, return the power to the local authorities and the development plan process to make those decisions in line with the national planning framework and the work of the Planning Regulator. Let us remove these draconian, unilateral changes to planning law by any Minister, which have no democratic legitimacy whatsoever and should not be part of our planning code.