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

As this is a significant legal change, it is important that we tease it out. Let us be clear that when this large-scale residential development process is in place, people will enter the pre-planning process and then the formal planning process and may then decide to appeal that to the board. There may then be judicial reviews. All of that will take the guts of nine to 12 months. There will be no large-scale residential development that will need to access this leapfrog provision in 2022. That is a reasonable assessment. That means this leapfrog provision is for one of two other things. It may be that somebody in the architecture of government wants to have this leapfrog provision in case it is required in the context of strategic infrastructure developments that are somewhere in the planning process at this point. That could be entirely reasonable. I am not suggesting there is anything untoward going on, but I think we should be told what that is.

Alternatively, it could be that somebody in the architecture of government and the Department is anticipating post-judicial review appeals to the Court of Appeal for strategic housing developments, including some of the most controversial such developments. Again, that is anticipated before the judicial review reform legislation is in place. My speculation - it is purely speculation and I am not casting aspersions on anyone because this is a completely legitimate thing for the Government to do - is that we have a very proactive Attorney General and this particular provision has all the fingerprints of the Attorney General, with his fulsome knowledge of the courts. There probably is an appetite within the Supreme Court for such a leapfrog provision. It would probably have a little bit more capacity to deal with such complex cases.

However, the question I genuinely asked of the Minister because I am open to being convinced on this - he has not answered it so I will ask it again - is what kind of development he expects this leapfrog provision to be used for between now and when his judicial review legislation, which I understand should come for pre-legislative scrutiny early in the new year and be passed within the first half of next year according to the timeline for it set out by the Department, comes into being. This provision is not for large-scale residential developments. None of those will even get to judicial review, let alone an appeal to the Court of Appeal, by the end of next year. Is it for certain strategic infrastructure developments? The Minister must know the answer. Why can he not just be straight with us and let us know so that we can judge whether it is a good and worthwhile provision? Thus far, he has not given any explanation as to why it is in this Bill in respect of large-scale residential developments.