Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 November 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

General Scheme of the Planning and Development and Foreshore (Amendment Bill) 2022: Discussion

Photo of Rebecca MoynihanRebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have just come onto the meeting, as I was doing something for the radio. I apologise if anyone has asked this question, so please go over me if it has already been asked. I thank Ms. Graham and I read her submission with interest. One of the difficult things is to get an assessment on whether An Bord Pleanála is fit for purpose in a 21st-century planning system. To do that, we need to have an idea of the number of applications coming in, how long they take to assess, how many people are assessing them and whether they have the basic capacity to make those large-scale decisions. While most of us would agree that is not the case at the moment, how do we get to a situation where that is the case? I welcome the fact we are going to decouple the decisions and the processes and the planning aspect and the organisational aspect of An Bord Pleanála, which is really important. However, has any assessment been done in terms of the potential human resources capacity needed in An Bord Pleanála in order to clear it at both inspectorate and decision-making levels? We are seeing things like An Bord Pleanála having to pay out to developers because they are simply not meeting the statutory timelines. In terms of scaling up, what is needed and if it is the case it has been done, who has managed to do it? I was looking recently at a really small planning application for three homes. The city council made an assessment. I read the planners' report. It was thorough and really well done. I then read the An Bord Pleanála report and it just seemed to have been a copy-and-paste job. That tells me that whoever is looking at it is really bus, and has a line of about ten or 20 applications. In terms of processes, are there set criteria against which applications are assessed, because we have a really complicated planning system? There are a number of layers in terms of policy documents and standards that have to be assessed, and then an overall decision that is made. Have moves been made to put in place simplified policy procedures for that?

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