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

This is one of a number of what can be described as very significant "innovations" in the Bill, and I use that word not necessarily saying it is a good thing in this instance. It relates to the interaction of the various layers of plan-making with the issuance of new national planning policy statements and the role of the regulator and the Minister. As these are quite new, very significant and potentially problematic, I am keen that the Minister of State talks us through how exactly these will operate in real life.

Section 34 deals with the consequences of new or amended national planning statements for regional, spatial and economic strategies. It sets out provisions for reporting within two months of the issuance of national planning statements from the regional assemblies. Two months seem very short to me and I am keen to know why it is that length of time. There is then a requirement to send a report to the Office of the Planning Regulator. The Office of the Planning Regulator then needs to give opinions as to whether there is any variance with the planning policy statements. Then there are provisions for the Minister, particularly running through from subsections (4) to (8), to issue directions.

I have never come across issues where there was a variance between regional spatial strategies and the section 28 ministerial guidelines in the SPPRs. I invite the Minister of State to give examples of this if he has any. Perhaps there have been many of them and they have just never been part of our policy or political discourse here. Why has this particular provision been deemed necessary? What problem is it trying to fix or is it that it is anticipating problems that do not currently exist but may exist in the future and the Minister of State is putting in a mechanism to deal with that? I am looking for as much as possible of the rationale for this.

What would the Minister of State say to people who describe the provisions in this section - and this is a word I will use a fair bit over the next number of sections - as a "draconian" power resulting in a further centralisation of decision-making, in this instance, in the hands of the Minister? It also gives a significantly increased role to the regulator. We have just been through a round of development plans and the role of the regulator in those development plans has been broadly positive. I do not agree with everything but it has been a positive addition. The regulator has similar functions in other areas of plan-making. Why is there this additional set of roles at different points of plan-making for the regulator? It seems to me over-burdensome, overkill and potentially opening up the possibility of greater levels of conflict and, God forbid, litigation between regional assemblies and the Minister or the Office of the Planning Regulator, depending on the content of some of those directions.