Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 4 November 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Unlocking Barriers to the Delivery of Housing: Discussion
2:00 am
Mr. Conor O'Connell:
The core strategy obviously comes from the national planning framework. By taking the shackles off, you zone more land and need more infrastructure. That was all based on outdated population growth targets. The RZLT, then, is kicking in. I will give a very good example of what is happening in certain local authorities at the moment. A number of local authorities have put out an expression of interest for landowners to come forward - this follows on from the section 28 guidelines - to illustrate the deliverability of that land for housing if they were to vary their development plan. It is an open consultation. Some local authorities have engaged in that process. That is an excellent process because it says that these lands, if we rezone them, will be delivered for housing purposes. The whole purpose of zoning land for residential development is that it will deliver ultimately. That is a very good example of what is happening and it should be replicated nationwide, in our opinion. That way, the arguments about imposing the RZLT on landowners may diminish somewhat. There are significant issues with the RZLT.
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