Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 21 February 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. John Sheahan:

I refer to the minutiae of the oversight of the OPR in respect of the first couple of test plans that went to it. I will take the example of County Wexford. Its plan was far more advanced than other plans at the time that the regulator's office was put in place. In terms of the minutiae of the report on Wexford's first draft plan, the OPR nearly went down every road and cul-de-sac in County Wexford to see if there was an issue in respect of the planning. The process moved on and, by the time we got to our plan, the OPR had started to take more of an overarching look at the plans rather than going through the minutiae of them. Going forward, it is good to have a regulator and we all know the history of planning in Ireland in the past 30 years but too far east can be west as well. I hope that is going to level itself out.