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

While I have been accused of many things in the Chamber and in the committee, it has never been lack of imagination, but there is always a first time. Imagination is not what we are looking for; we are looking for reforms that will work and will improve our planning system. That is the issue at hand here.

The Minister of State has said that the status quo is not sustainable. That means that if this legislation had been in place last year, fewer judicial reviews would have been taken and the JRs that were taken would have been processed more speedily. I do not believe there is any evidence to support that. I believe four unmanned wind energy licences were issued in the past 12 months, all of which were subject to JR. I spoke to some of the industry people involved and I do not believe anything in this Bill would have altered that fact if this legislation had been in place. That is my understanding. We have spoken about large-scale residential developments. The volume of judicial reviews in residential developments has declined significantly because we have a two-stage large-scale residential development process and greater consistency between development plans and Government policy.

On the one hand, with onshore wind there is nothing in this Bill that would make a significant impact on the status quo, which the Minister of State said is unacceptable. We have seen a resolution of the spike in JRs in residential developments as a result of bad planning legislation. I ask him to convince us. If this had been in place in the past 12 months, what would be different from what is currently the case?

The two changes the Minister of State referenced arising from pre-legislative scrutiny are not objectionable but they are really minor. He spoke about the removal of the leave stage, which is often the shortest and least contentious part of the process. The legal experts we have spoken to have said that of course it is not objectionable but will not make a significant difference to the overall time. Likewise with the unincorporated bodies, the big concern from residents' associations is that the chill factor is still there notwithstanding the modest change that has been made.

We have spoken to legal representatives who often represent residents' associations and also crucially legal representatives who represent residential developers. They are telling us two things about that section of this Part. First, they believe it will not work; people will find a workaround to it very quickly meaning that the Government's efforts will have been in vain. Second, they believe it will be challenged in the courts which will delay all sorts of other decisions. I do not accept for a second that those two minor and modest changes amount to significantly addressing the serious concerns that were raised during PLS by professionals in the field.

With respect to the fees, the problem is that we do not know what the fee structure is. We do not know what the legal aid system will be. We know that we have a legal aid system that does not work. The people who most need protection under that scheme can rarely avail of it. While I am not arguing that Heather Hill is perfect, we are being asked to dispense with something that at least provides legal clarity for something that is completely unknown. If the Minister of State could outline to us exactly how the fee structure system will work and the legal aid system, that would be great. His counterparts in the other Department do not have clarity on all that.

Therefore, I am not hearing anything that is convincing me. I am open to being convinced, but every time we ask for evidence that supports the claims being made, all we are given is rhetoric about needing to speed things up and improve them. Everyone agrees with that, but we are looking for evidence to substantiate the claim that what is in the Bill will do that and we will not be back here in two or three years like we were with SHDs, SPPRs and building height and design standards when the fears raised with us by professionals in the field, and that we in turn raised here, came to pass and we were proven right.

What in this Bill would have made a difference over the past year? Using real-life examples, how would it have improved the status quo? What will the fee structure and legal aid regime look like? If the Minister of State wants to convince us to replace one system with something else, he needs to tell us what that something else is.