Mr. John Spain:

I welcome Senator Boyhan's comments on the regulations. It would be very helpful to understand fully some of these very welcome provisions, but the detail is critical as well on how they will work in practice. There is already exempted development around extensions of duration. It is a critical issue for implementing the unbuilt housing permissions, some of which are towards the end of their life. One or two years to go is too short to commence, because you would not get there before it runs out, and due to changes made in 2021, the permission cannot be extended before development starts unless there is confidence the permission would be there to finish it. That is the type of thing we need to understand better. It could help unlock that key issue of permissions not being implemented.

In response to the point on material contravention, the Bill still allows for material contravention in certain circumstances, but they are more restricted than in the current legislation. We would say that, at a very minimum, the provisions in the current legislation in terms of the powers of An Bord Pleanála to grant permission where there is clear contravention should be retained because it is an independent body, a person can make the case through it and it can make the ultimate planning judgement on the point, whereas development plans are at a fixed point in time and, even with variations and reviews, there will always be circumstances which were not predicted at the time the plan was adopted. We understand that new Government guidelines will be published shortly on more compact forms of urban housing development that we talked about with the CIF. That will be very welcome. They will again help to deal with the viability issue with apartments and help deliver the right density in the new housing format. If development plans contain policies on size, separation distance or whatever else that relates to traditional housing models and do not reflect that, it will be difficult for An Bord Pleanála to grant permission because there will be material contraventions arising. There are quite a number of circumstances that can arise that may not be anticipated. The board needs to retain that power to decide on applications on their merit in the context of proper planning and sustainable development at that time.