Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 774:

In page 297, line 34, after "application" to insert "with a deduction for planning services administrative fee, as prescribed".

I will speak to my amendments here. I am somewhat in agreement with Deputy Ó Broin. I have often felt that the fees for planning applications do not reflect the significant amount of work that goes in at local authority level, the complexity and the time that is taken up by local authorities in trying to assess complex and long applications. There are many aspects of development that involve a much higher cost. In respect of those involved in planning, we should apply a similar value to the time that local authorities invest in assessing these applications. That is along the lines of what I am doing with some of my amendments.

Amendment No. 774 relates to section 159, which, in turn, relates to circumstances where a planning application is declared invalid. Applications are often declared invalid because the paperwork or what should be submitted with the planning application is not present. As a result, the application is invalidated. That give rise to work on the part of a local authority for which it does not get any payment. I am suggesting that there would be a deduction of some fees and that rather than refunding all the fees where an application is invalid, we value the time that was taken by the local authority to assess the application. I suggest that an amount equal to the administrative cost to declare an application invalid be deducted.

Does it make sense for me to speak to all of these amendments first and for the Minister of State to respond?