Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

There are two issues, the policy decision that was made a number of years ago which was to ensure that national guidelines were being applied in Dublin. It is important to note that these are much more generous than the UK guidelines, including Northern Ireland. We are not talking about small boxy apartments. From memory, it was agreed to apply the national guidelines which we had previously to everywhere in the country, whereas Dublin had decided to increase space. The problem with that, of course, is that it pushes up the cost of building apartments. I believe we compare well internationally. Many of the developers who are coming to Ireland from abroad, make the case that the guidelines are far more demanding and far more costly in Ireland than they are elsewhere. I do not make any apologies for that because we want decent quality apartment accommodation in Dublin and elsewhere but I think the principle of a Minister being able to set clear national guidelines that local authorities must abide by is important. Otherwise it may be impossible for a national decision to be made in response to a national emergency of some type or take some significant policy initiative to be able to do that. The local authorities could ignore that ruling or a Minister might not be able to do it.

The issue is a delegation of powers in terms of whether the Minister with responsibility for planning has the capacity to introduce something that local authorities must take note of. We could argue sizes at length but the issue is the principle of a Minister being able to use his powers, as the then previous minister, Deputy Kelly did. At the time we debated that issue for a long time in Cabinet but I can understand why he made that decision.

I do not propose to accept the amendment for those reasons.