Mr. Niall Cussen:

We strongly welcome the comprehensive review of the planning legislation. It has been 23 years since the passing of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and, as the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and his Department have flagged, the review is focused on specific parts of the legislative framework for planning, recognising that many parts of the system work reasonably effectively while others reflect the fact the worlds of 2000 and 2023 are very different. A particular focus for our office concerns the provisions of the Bill relating to plans, policies and related matters in Chapter 3. This is because in the case of the current legislation, many of the difficulties we encounter have to do with the interpretation and implementation of planning policies from national to regional and local levels.

For the planning process to perform smoothly for all its users, there needs to be a general coherence of approach, throughout the different levels on the key policy areas including housing supply, climate action, the protection of natural and public resources and public safety matters such as flood risk, that, while taking account of local issues, consistently applies clear rules. From an OPR point of view, we cannot function as an effective overseer of the planning process without this. We need to move forward from the current situation where the Minister produces guidelines, and due to court decisions, there are now difficulties in respect of how they are to be implemented.

We welcome, therefore, the strengthened legal status for ministerial guidelines, which will be upgraded to national planning policy statements and associated national planning policy guidance. These will be approved by the Government, subject to all the necessary assessments such as environmental and so on, and the Bill makes clear that alignment of other plans with them will be mandatory. This will make our role, as something of a referee in the planning process, much more straightforward. We also welcome the more strategic focus of development plans and their extended lifespan with good opportunities for mid-term review, which should both ease the burden of their production and give the public a stronger strong sense of what is being planned for particular areas before any planning applications emerge. We also welcome the evolution of local area plans towards specific types of area-based plans to meet specific needs, such as urban area plans, priority area plans, joint area plan and the existing strategic development zones and urban development zones, as well as being much more focused on implementation.

We agree with statutory mandatory timelines for all consent processes, including An Bord Pleanála decisions, to bring certainty to the planning consent process, subject to the proviso that long-running and structural resourcing issues in the planning process must be addressed if this is to work. Such timelines have not yet been fully finalised but in doing so, they must take proper account of the time needed to make proper and robust decisions that will withstand any legal scrutiny. The key is to provide certainty around the planning process rather than to set unrealistic deadlines, which could lead to rushed rather than correct decisions. As the Department's own analysis, in conjunction with the local authorities, has shown, the planning service is under-resourced, perhaps by up to one third in headcount terms, and with fee income not having been revised since 2001, our planning service is chronically underfunded. The historical and structural underfunding of our planning processes is all the more remarkable when we consider how central it is to delivering much of what we need in this country, such as homes, schools, flood defences and renewable energy infrastructure.

We disagree, however, with the concept of issuing fines for failures to meet statutory deadlines. A better way needs to be found than the prospect of An Bord Pleanála as it is now, or the planning commission in time, handing over fee income it needs to function to applicants. Resourcing of the planning service is the key, allied to wider measures including a new digital strategy for all planning functions. The challenges facing the provision of certainty in respect of planning outcomes will benefit from the Bill's changes to judicial reviews of planning decisions, with the timelines for various steps in the judicial review process and the scope for An Bord Pleanála to correct any errors of fact or law in a planning decision. The Bill will also bring clarity to the role of different parties in accessing justice.

We are struck by the degree to which the general scheme of the Bill acts on every one of the relevant recommendations of our two reports into An Bord Pleanála, which will enable a deep restructuring addressing our central recommendation of the separation of its decision-making and governance structures.

The new structure and brand of the organisation respond to our call for an organisational reset with planning commissioners replacing the current chairperson and board member roles and a new governing executive responsible for the organisation’s governance and organisation. There will be increased clarity regarding environmental assessments in the planning process, which will be a hugely important area to get right and there will be greater integration of the scope and role of environmental assessments into plan-making functions and consenting processes. There are areas that will probably need some more work. We are understanding that as we read the Bill, on an ongoing basis. We also strongly welcome the increased capacity for local authorities to utilise compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, in pursuance of their functions, for example, to acquire vacant or derelict properties for onward sale and to play a stronger role in land activation.

In short, while some parts of the 2000 code have become challenging to understand and operate after years of amendments, much of the wider code is not broken so the Bill commendably focuses on what needs streamlining while blending in more familiar provisions in a new comprehensive piece of proposed legislation. We are happy to engage with committee and assist in any way possible.