Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To stick with some of the Part 9 changes in the context of judicial review, when we were teasing out some of this stuff with both the Irish Planning Institute and Wind Energy Ireland at a previous meeting, the Irish Planning Institute was kind of indicating that if such a provision, that is, correcting the decisions on the basis of errors of fact or law, were to remain, there should be an automatic assumption that the board is responsible for all costs because it is responsible for the error. I am interested in Mr. Logue's view on that, notwithstanding his broader concerns around the provision that he outlined earlier. Wind Energy Ireland's legal advice from Arthur Cox made a distinction between errors of fact and errors of law in that errors of fact should be correctable whereas the situation with clarifications on points of law is different. I would be interested in Mr. Logue's thoughts on that. We have not so far discussed the wider implications of the Bill in terms of cost protection and cost recovery, and this mysterious issue of the legal aid scheme for environmental cases. Any views on any of that would be more than welcome.

I will go back to Mr. Logue's observation on the RIAI because the committee is probably universally in agreement with him on this. The more we get the plan-making right and upstream stuff correct, the less of a discussion we will need to have around legal challenges. We will be doing what everybody presenting to the committee wants to see, which is a really good functioning planning system with full public and sectoral participation. Is there anything Mr. Logue would like to see added to the Bill to facilitate that?

Obviously, we know about the resources issue. That point has been well-made by the bodies that have to look after that role. However, what else does the Bill need to have to assist and accelerate that? While it is not related to the Bill, Mr. Logue is absolutely pushing at an open door in terms of cross-party support in this committee, not only for low-rise, mid-density housing but also, for many of us, mid-rise, high-density housing, particularly in inner urban cores. I would encourage Mr. Logue to push that door wide open because we need to shout a little bit louder if the Department is going to listen.

In some sense, that is an interesting example of where guidelines sensibly applied could be really helpful, not unlike, for example, the design manual for urban roads. We could have central government policy that sets a broad long-term strategic framework in terms of densities and the kinds of levels of densities we need in different locations. Local authorities could then map those out in their development plans, as is appropriate, according to local need. Then, they can design manuals with the guidance documents coming in to give everybody options, for instance, plot of land X requires a density of Y, therefore, here are a number of different ways of dealing with that, whether it is low-rise, mid-density housing or whatever. I encourage Mr. Logue to pursue that matter, particularly as, in my view, there would be universal support for him across the committee in respect of it. Mr. Logue might perhaps start with those first few questions for the Irish Environmental Network and then come back to the plan-led approach afterwards.