John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A priority focus needs to be put on developments that are going to the board in terms of housing. One can put a number on it, one can say housing developments of X number of units must get priority. There are the normal circumstances versus the circumstances that we are in with An Bord Pleanála now. We are addressing the staffing concerns. This legislation is for the next 20 years, so we have to be cognisant of that. We have to put timelines in place that are challenging for the board. We cannot put something in primary legislation here that takes account of the fact that An Bord Pleanála has challenges at the moment, which it should not have, let us say in 12 months time; this legislation will run for another 19 years. Those timelines need to be very ambitious and penalties need to be significant to focus the mind and get the decisions that we need, particularly on housing.

I want to talk about housing density. Section 45 refers to the preparation of housing delivery strategies, and that residential density or a range of densities shall be appropriate to the settlement size. This is a bugbear of mine being from a regional city of Waterford. I am all for density in city centre locations. However, the density that can be applied to a suburb in Galway, Limerick and Waterford in particular, is not the same as the density that can be applied in the centre of Dublin city. There should be flexibility in the process for a local authority, to be able to look at its plan, what is appropriate to the location and to put in the appropriate density while at the same being cognisant of what we are looking to achieve in national and regional planning policy. At times, the density requirements are driving apartment development, in particular, in suburban areas where it does not fit and that is even outside of the argument that people do not want to buy those apartments, which the sector will say itself. What is the thinking in that respect?