Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will first address amendment No. 302 tabled by Deputies Ó Broin, Gould and Ó Snodaigh, which seeks to amend section 40(2) of the Bill by changing the period for commencing a review of a development plan from eight years after the last plan to seven years. I cannot accept this amendment as it would have consequential implications for other periods set out in the Bill for the completion of the development plan. The development plan adoption process has been adjusted in the Bill to allow for some additional time to take account of balancing the necessary time to prepare and adopt a development plan with the need to make the plan in an effective time. This proposal effectively reduces the life of the development plan as the statutory timelines for each stage in the adoption process - pre-draft, draft plan stage, etc. - remains unchanged. This is not warranted and indeed would have the unintended consequence of reducing the capacity of the planning authority to deploy resources to activate policies contained in a plan by significantly reducing the period between the intermediate review of the plan, after five years, and the time the review of the plan would commence in year seven.