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

I will move on the conversation to incorporate amendments Nos. 612 and 613 but they relate to the same issue. In my opinion and I say this respectfully, the Minister of State is plain wrong that it is not a planning matter. My two amendments Nos. 612 and 613 seek to explain in practical terms that this is a planning matter. Amendment No. 612 relates to section 84, which deals with conditions that may be attached to permission granted under the Part of the Bill relating to obligations on planning authorities or the commission in the context of grants. Section 84 goes through all the types of conditions that can be attached to a grant of permission. Again, this was discussed with the Irish Green Building Council. There is a proposition in amendment No. 612 to include a new paragraph (m) referring to “conditions requiring to measure and address whole life carbon emissions and address whole life carbon emissions of new developments in line with the States carbon targets”. Amendment No. 613 moves beyond embodied carbon, again relates to a new paragraph (m) and refers to “conditions requiring the development to have regard to the ratio of infrastructure to buildings and homes to ensure a more efficient use of infrastructure and associated emissions”.

A real-life example we often use, because it is pretty straightforward, is concrete and cement. Two types of concrete and cement are currently available on the Irish market. This has been well rehearsed at this committee. One is high carbon and the other is low carbon. All the major concrete and cement manufacturers can produce the low-carbon cement. They all have the technology, from the largest company to the smallest. There is the same cost for anybody who is carrying out development, all other things being equal, to use the low-carbon cement or concrete as there is to use the high-carbon one. Deputy Duffy is contradicting me here and he will come in on this in a moment, but all things being equal, there is broadly the same cost. In my opinion, a planning authority should be able to apply a condition to ensure the lower carbon cement will be used on certain projects where not doing so would have a negative impact on the environment. I am simplifying this to make it as easy as possible to understand, but that could be a planning condition.

The question of how to quantify and measure is clearly a building control matter. However, there is no reason that option should not be available in the grant of a permission, particularly where there are infrastructure projects or utility company projects that would be very concrete-intensive. It would be eminently sensible thing to do. The Minister of State seems to suggest that there is this complete separation of building control from planning permissions and that is a position I just do not accept. When the NZEB requirements to phase out gas boilers were coming in, which Deputy Francis Noel Duffy will remember, we kept asking who would enforce and monitor them. We kept being told the building control section was going to do it. Of course, we know that section is the poor cousin of our planning department’s chronic understaffing of our building control sections. There is a bad history of building control enforcement. Some local authorities, such as Dublin City Council, have gold-plated building control sections while others do not. Therefore, we made the point at the time that there should be a planning element as well as a building control element. I am making the same point here. I just do not accept there cannot be a planning element.

To extend the point, while it is not in these amendments, it confirms the point that the demolition of buildings and the reuse of materials from demolition is a planning matter and should be a matter that could be included as a condition in a grant of permission. Therefore, planning plays a key role in this.

On that basis, I urge the Minister of State not to reconsider the amendments because I know he will not but I ask him to go back and think this through. If we wait until 2030, it will be too late and we will be playing catch up. That means we will be multiples of years behind the curve meeting our 2050 targets when other member states such as France and Denmark will be way ahead of us.