Mr. Gavin Lawlor:

I am the Vice President of the Irish Planning Institute, IPI. The IPI was founded in 1975, and is the all-island professional body representing professional planners engaged in physical and environmental planning in Ireland. The institute’s mission is to advance planning by serving, improving and promoting the planning profession for the benefit of the community and the common good. The IPI represents approximately 700 planners from across the public, private, semi-State and academic sectors. Our members work in central Government, private practice, agencies, third level institutes, planning authorities in both the Republic and Northern Ireland, and also in An Bord Pleanála and elsewhere.

The IPI is affiliated to the umbrella body which is the European Council of Spatial Planners, ECTP-CEU; has international links with the Planning Institute of Australia, PIA and the New Zealand Planning Institute, NZPI; and is a member of the Global Planners Network, GPN.

We welcome the opportunity provided by the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage to comment on the planning and development and foreshore (amendment) Bill 2022. The IPI represents inspectors, a number of board members and we have former board members among our ranks and can therefore offer an insight on the Bill from that perspective. Our remarks address the sections where we see some improvements can be made.

I will begin with head 4, the amendment of section 104 of the principal Act. While the IPI welcomes the increase in the total number of board members, which brings the board up to 14 in total, we have concerns about the number of board members if this is explicitly linked to the number of cases. We see this as a difficulty and if the board member has particular expertise, such as ecology, it would be contrary to best practice to lose that specialist expertise in the event of the number of cases dropping.

I turn now to head 5 which deals with the amendment of section 106 of the principal Act. Ten areas of expertise of the board members are suggested in section 106(2)(a). The IPI recommends that (2)(a) be amended to include additional expertise in the areas of the law, ecology, built heritage, the marine environment, climate change and the Irish language. We note that the term “heritage”, as set out, is not particular enough to ensure both natural and built heritage are addressed. These elements require completely different skill sets. We welcome the intention to provide for an equitable balance between men and women. The need for transparency in the selection of the committee or other procedure, referred to in section 106(3), is another concern of the IPI. This committee to advise the Minister on appointments to the board, and the transparency in relation to it, will be critical to restoring confidence in board membership. The IPI recommends that the regulations on this committee are published quickly so that the appointment of the board members is not delayed. It is critical once the skills necessary for the board to operate successfully are identified, that there is some staggering of the timing of appointments, so that the corporate knowledge is not lost when ordinary members have completed their terms. We recommend an additional subsection is added to section 106 (9) to ensure no more than one third of the board members are replaced at any one time. This is an issue that the board is having to deal with at the moment because there has been a number of members who have come to the end of their term. There has been resignations as well, both forced and unforced, meaning that the board currently has essentially four operational members. It has no Chair or deputy Chair and effectively cannot currently legislatively make decisions. As a result, no decisions are currently being made by An Bord Pleanála.

In terms of head 6, section 108 of the principal Act, the end of the two-person quorum for specified cases is welcomed by the IPI. The three-person board allows for at least a minority position to be maintained and reduces the potential for "group think".

Regarding head 9, amendment of section 1 of the Foreshore Act 1933, the Irish Planning Institute generally welcomes the clarification of the definition of the foreshore and tidal lands in the Bill, which brings certainty to all interested parties as to the meaning and extent of these terms. We were aware there is a lot of uncertainty particularly around the airspace.

In conclusion then, I note that a diverse and skilled board is needed given the complexity of the cases received by An Bord Pleanála today. The restoration of public confidence in the appointment of members to the board, is critical to subsequent acceptance that the decisions made by the board are done on the basis of public policy, the common good and sustainable development. The more transparent the process of appointment, particularly in the make-up of the committee to advise the Minister on these matters, the more this will contribute to ensuring the integrity of the process. Replenishing the board should be done on a staggered basis, so that new members have a supportive framework when making decisions.