Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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To address the issues in reverse order, in June, it will be five years since that expert report on Traveller accommodation was published. The core planning recommendations of that report have not been implemented. The committee spent considerable time engaging with the three members of the panel and with the Minister to ensure that Part 8 and section 183 planning permissions and land transfers could not be abused to prevent or block the delivery of much-needed Traveller-specific accommodation. The Minister of State is absolutely correct that, during the Covid pandemic, the chronic underspends in the budget were finally dealt with. However, it is interesting that, when you look at what the money is spent on year on year, you see that very little, if any, is spent on new homes and new Traveller-specific and culturally appropriate sites. A lot of it has been going towards site works, site maintenance and post-Covid pandemic matters. My question is very simple. Is it the intention of the Department to bring forward the legislation required for those elements of category B of the expert group on Traveller accommodation report to be implemented at any point in the lifetime of this Government? I suspect the answer is "No" but I would like to hear from the Minister of State on that.

I will give three quick responses to the Minister of State's commentary on embodied carbon. Here is the problem. He is correct that reducing the amount of carbon in building materials is not a matter for a planning Bill. However, ensuring the use of lower-carbon building materials in the development process absolutely is. There is nothing in law that allows a planning authority to make a grant of planning conditional on the use of lower-carbon cement, for example. That makes no sense. As I understand it, nothing exists in current planning legislation that says, where a building is being demolished, reusable brick or light gauge steel should not be directed into infill or made into aggregate for roads and should instead be recycled and used in other developments. I refer to the recycling of steel for modular 2D or 3D panelised systems or the recycling of bricks. I ask the Minister of State to please correct me if I am wrong but the only way we are going to get the public, semi-State and private sector development communities to use lower-carbon building materials is to change not only the building regulations, but also the planning regulations so that such conditions are enforceable. It is a real frustration. There needs to be a rethink at the level of the Department and of the Minister as to the Department's contribution to this.

I cannot remember the name of the person from the Climate Change Advisory Council who was commenting on this in the media yesterday but they were not very complimentary of the response of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage as regards its level of preparedness for the kinds of changes that are required across all three areas, namely, planning, building control and procurement, to meet our 2030 emissions reductions targets. This area is relatively uncontroversial. Nobody cares which cement is used, whether a lower-carbon cement or a higher-carbon cement. It is a very easy win politically as regards addressing the issue of embodied carbon. However, this area, which is the least controversially politically, is the furthest behind the curve in the advancement of the legislative changes, including changes to planning legislation, that are required. That is my last comment on these amendments.