Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To go through this, Deputy Ó Snodaigh's comments at the end helped me to answer the question I wanted to put even when Deputy Boyd Barrett was here. The completion is within the planning permission period. You have to build and operate within a planning permission period. If you start building and you have a five-year permission, the permission is for five years. It is not that you get your permission and you start building four years and 11 months in and then happily go on. If you are operating outside of the five years, you would be developing an unauthorised development then because your planning permission has ceased. This addresses the points that many of the members have been making around the timeframe. This is a real issue if you are trying to fund a project, be that the Housing Agency, a State funder or some other authority. If we want to fund a development and the permission is reduced to two or three years, who is going to fund the development if it is known it cannot be completed within the two- or three-year period? If you are still building post that date, you are going to be unauthorised as your completion date is up to the five-year period. The amendments that are here, while well-meaning, and I understand not necessarily the rationale but the points that members have made, would greatly restrict the ability to be able to finish any type of project within that period of time. Funding is a real issue, although not the only one. I would agree with Deputy Bacik on this. One of the other reasons for this is the delays. The purpose of the legislation we are bringing through is to bring forward those statutory timeframes that are in place to bring the consistency and certainty we need on timeframes and the clarity around who can interact with the planning system. Those are the three main objectives to do within this. Delays are one of the major complaints. As Deputy O'Callaghan mentioned, if we take MetroLink, we do not want to see a permission going on and on. Nobody does but it will not. I will not talk about a specific development because the oral hearing is just being heard.