Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 9 March 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Paul Hogan:

We are in the process of moving from a unitary system whereby the development plan was where it was at. Many people have been very comfortable with that. It was one document and very straightforward. We now have an integrated hierarchical system. That sounds very complicated, but it is the fact that things move from the national to the regional to the local and there are that those different levels of decision-making. Each should be appropriate to the stage in the process. We have been transitioning for the past five or six years. It is not complete, and we are having this review on top of that. There is a tension in the system as a result. We are very conscious that things that are done at national level need to be national. In thinking about it, we were considering what was a good comparison and we thought it would be something like the rules of the road. The fact that everyone in every county drives on the same side of the road. We have the National Roads Authority. In that context, motorways that do not suddenly end at county boundaries. That sort of thing-----

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