Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Let us put a few myths to bed. We need transitional arrangements and they have to be there, as most people recognise. To respond to Deputy Boyd Barrett, the process cannot be just cut off. In the Seanad, the main Opposition party originally argued there should not be any transition but now it is proposing eight weeks. We have to provide a transition. If someone is engaging with a formal pre-planning process, applications cannot just be flipped over to the board. We would be open to legal challenge and we cannot do it.

In order that Deputies are aware, as the Act that provides for SHDs stands and until we bring in this legislation with the provisions I am making, if someone has received a pre-application opinion from the board, he or she could lodge an SHD application in five years. If anything, I am shortening that provision substantially. That is what is happening. It is not a loophole. We are ending SHDs. The idea that the planning pause during the first wave of Covid would not apply to one aspect of planning just does not stand up to fair scrutiny. The Government committed not to extending SHDs, which we are not doing, and we are going further by putting in a better process that is more democratic and transparent and that will restore planning to local authorities. We cannot accept amendments that would provide for no transition because that would not work and we would leave ourselves open to challenge left, right and centre.

The idea that anybody who has not even engaged will rock up before 17 December, lodge an SHD application and off they go is not the case. There would have to be a section 247 application to the local authority and much of the work would have to have been already done. In light of the number of judicial reviews taken against the SHD process, I do not see how it is an attractive process for anybody who has not engaged with it heretofore to come into the system. A line is often peddled about co-living being extended for a period, but we banned co-living. We had to send it out for screening. Everybody knows that is the case. It went out for 30 days of screening, which had to happen, but that was it and they are gone. SHDs will be gone too because of this legislation, and that is a commitment both the Government and I have made.

I cannot accept the amendments. We need transitional arrangements. It will not mean a glut of new SHD applications will come in during the final week, in advance of their termination. Applicants will have to have engaged with the process. In the case of anyone who has not engaged with the process, new applications from 17 December will go back to the local authorities. That is important. It is being done in a very short space of time. It is relatively complex legislation that, thankfully, has heretofore received the support of virtually all Members of both Houses, but transition arrangements are required. What I have proposed are appropriate and realistic timeframes to allow for some potentially good applications we want to see through to fruition. If they were flipped out into another process, it could very well end up further delaying the provision of more homes. I am tired of seeing delays for many different reasons, some of them good reasons, in respect of the delivery of homes.

We need homes to be built. The Bill will restore planning powers to the local authorities, which is what we all want to do. I respect the Deputies for the amendments they tabled but I cannot accept any of them.