Mr. Paul Hogan:

I will address a few points. The first thing to do is put this in context. The SHD legislation arises out of the Rebuilding Ireland strategy to increase housing supply in response to an ongoing and consistent criticism of the planning system as having inherent and in-built delays. If the SHD has two objectives, they are efficiencies and outcomes. During pretty much all of my career as a planner, the first thing I have heard levelled at planning and the planning system is delay, delay, delay. What this has achieved for planning outcomes or the planning process is a degree of consistency and certainty that builds in upfront a lot of the considerations that were played out through the system and did not get addressed until it was too late. We are lucky to already have had a review by an independent expert group that included representations from broadly based local government representatives as much as anyone else. That review concluded that the SHD system is working in terms of efficiencies and better outcomes. The reason the outcomes are better is because a more formalised upfront system is in place. Members will have heard in the presentations how both Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Hyde talked about a three-stage system upfront.

There is a pre-application meeting, which involves all parties, with An Bord Pleanála and then there is the application. That level of formalisation did not exist, or had not existed to the same extent, for housing development proposals prior to the SHD process. That meant that applications granted through the process are determined to be better, and that was one of the conclusions of the expert advisory group.

Moving on to address the question of whether we are going against the programme for Government, that is absolutely not the case. The last recommendation, No. 22, of the expert advisory group, however, was that the Department should consider what aspects of the SHD process were successful and could be considered for translation into the general planning system. That is where we are at now. Several things could be used to benefit the normal planning system, if we can call it that, and that would include more formalised upfront consideration even before a planning application is submitted to ensure that we get better outcomes.

More broadly, the idea that activation could be better was a part of the terms of reference of the expert advisory group and was part of its considerations and recommendations to the Minister, and his subsequent decision in that regard. I acknowledge that activation could be better and it is something we are continuing to work on. The use it or lose proposals are a direct response to that and we are also considering other means.