Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 22 January 2026
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
General Scheme of the Planning and Development (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed)
2:00 am
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Apologies have been received from Senator Maria McCormack and Deputy Rory Hearne, and Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh is substituting for Deputy Thomas Gould.
I advise members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings.
The general scheme of the planning and development Bill provides for targeted amendments to the Planning and Development Act 2024 alongside consequential and transitional amendments to the Planning and Development Act 2000 and the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2025. I am pleased that we have the opportunity to consider this and other related matters with representatives of the County and City Management Association, CCMA, the Planning, Environmental and Local Government Bar Association, the Irish Planning Institute and the Construction Industry Federation. I welcome from the CCMA Mr. Liam Conneally and Emer Uí Fhátharta; from the Planning, Environmental and Local Government Bar Association, I welcome Mr. Tom Flynn and Mr. Alan Doyle; from the Irish Planning Institute, I welcome Ms Deirdre Scully; and from the Construction Industry Federation, I welcome Mr. Kieran Rush, Mr. James Leonard and Mr. Conor O'Connell.
Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practices of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to another person in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precinct is protected, pursuant to the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
The opening statements have been circulated to members. Is it agreed we will publish them on our website? Agreed.
All of the witnesses have submitted their opening statements and I ask them to condense them when presenting. This is quite a complicated area and that will allow us to hear from the witnesses. I now invite Mr. Conneally to make his opening remarks on behalf of the CCMA.
Mr. Liam Conneally:
I am the chief executive of Galway County Council and chair of the County and City Management Association committee on planning and land use. I am accompanied here today by Emer Uí Fhátharta, the acting city planner of Dublin City Council, who is also a member of the CCMA planning and land use committee.
On behalf of the CCMA, I thank the committee for its invitation and hope that our contributions will assist it in its pre-legislative scrutiny of the planning and development Bill. Committee members know that planning is one of local government's core functions and local authorities play an essential leadership role across the full planning service. The responsibility and remit of the CCMA planning and land use committee includes planning, land use, building control and related regulatory functions. Local authorities, as planning authorities, are responsible for implementing national planning and development legislation and ensuring that statutory requirements are met at local level.
The CCMA's planning and land use committee supports the effective implementation of legislation and works in partnership with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and across all local authorities to ensure consistent, co-ordinated and compliant delivery of planning and land use functions across the local government sector. The recent publication of the general scheme of the Bill will require careful attention to ascertain its implications for the planning system. Owing to the recency of the document, full consideration by the CCMA of its content and application is ongoing. The observations provided here represent the CCMA's initial assessment of the general scheme.
Judicial reviews of planning decisions are the subject of much commentary. It is important to acknowledge the benefit in the proposed legislation of bringing judicial reviews onto one legal path by bringing decisions issued under the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, under the provisions of Part 9 of the Planning and Development Act 2024. Such an approach is considered reasonable in the context of the graduated roll-out of the overall Planning and Development Act 2024, on the basis that if the new judicial review provisions represent a fair and transparent approach, complete with appropriate guardrails, then it would appear to be reasonable to apply the same to contemporaneous decisions rather than to wait for a future date.
Any measure to reduce time in the judicial review process, which would encourage expedited activation of major infrastructure delivery, in particular to deliver increased housing, is indeed welcome. To put this in the context of the wider planning process, 88% of all planning applications are granted, 7% are appealed to An Coimisiún Pleanála and fewer than 0.5% of these decisions are brought to judicial review. However, those that are subject to judicial review tend to be those of strategic national, regional and local importance.
The CCMA welcomes the alignment of regional spatial and economic strategies with the national planning framework and local authority development plans. The provision in the general scheme to extend the life of city and county development plans is very welcome. The increase in the statutory period of city and county development plans of up to 30 months while regional spatial and economic strategies are drafted will allow for better future planning policy alignment and enable a consistent approach to plan-led development. The local government sector looks forward to engaging further with departmental officials on this matter.
The CCMA notes that head 4, relating to amendments to Chapter 4 of Part 3 concerning the review of timelines for regional spatial and economic strategies, needs more detail. In the absence of this detail, it is difficult to provide observations on coinciding timelines for regional spatial and economic strategies and city and county development plans. Notwithstanding this, there are some significant matters that require consideration in order to support the alignment of regional spatial and economic strategies with city and county development plans. The three regional spatial and economic strategies are to commence in April 2026. Their completion estimates vary from 14 months to 24 months but there is no statutory timeline for them. Many local authorities will need to begin the development plan review process in quarter 4 of 2026. A 30-month extension would bring them to June 2029. As such, the regional spatial and economic strategies will need to be completed in time for the statutory timeframe for the city and county development plan review process. The next census will be taken in April 2027 with the full results available in April 2028. This data will be needed in the city and county development plan review process. It will be necessary for the Department, local government and regional assemblies to continue to work closely to ensure the system can respond effectively to any impediments to the intended alignment schedule.
The local government sector welcomes the ten-year city and county development plan statutory period. All local authority plans will come on stream either at the same time or in close succession and this will place significant pressure on inputs from prescribed bodies, including the Office of the Planning Regulator and planning consultants. The CCMA has requested that the Department to consider this matter and to consult with local authorities, the Office of the Planning Regulator and regional assemblies to stagger the adoption of development plans across the State to ensure appropriate levels of engagement by prescribed bodies, stakeholders and State agencies.
The definition of key towns as having 10,000 population and over needs further consideration.
It is unclear whether this replaces the current definition as set out in the 2024 Act or is an additional criterion. For the purposes of subsection (8) from the previous legislation, "a key town is a large, economically active settlement that provides employment and services for its surrounding area and has the capacity to complement a regional growth centre". It is important that this definition continues to exist in the regional spatial and economic strategies, RSESs, and our city and county development plans. Clarity on this point is required and noting that there are instances in rural counties where towns below this threshold play an important strategic role based on economic activity or strategic geographic circumstances or where rapid population growth is evident. Regional assemblies need to be able to consider these.
This is a significant legislation. The planning and development (amendment) Bill brings legislative clarity across a range of legislative provisions and is welcomed by the local government sector. This legislation will improve the effectiveness of the Irish planning system.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Conneally very much. We will try to tighten the time to give the opportunity to members. We have a lot of members here today. I invite Mr. Flynn to make his opening statement.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
I thank the Chair and committee members for offering us the opportunity to talk to them this morning about the draft planning and development (amendment) Bill. I am a senior counsel and member of the inner Bar. I am here in my capacity as chairperson of the Planning, Environmental and Local Government Bar Association, PELGBA, which is a specialist association of barristers who practice in the areas of planning, environmental and local government law. I am accompanied by colleague Mr. Alan Doyle who is a barrister as well and works in this area.
The membership of PELGBA comprises of barristers who regularly act for the State, An Coimisiún Pleanála, local authorities, developers, environmental non-Government organisations, resident associations and individual applicants for judicial review. Thus, the composition of our membership gives us a unique insight and perspective into the issues raised by the publication of the draft planning and development (amendment) Bill and planning law generally.
The Bill proposes to make several amendments to the recently enacted Planning and Development Act 2024, which is in the process of being commenced on a phased basis. The Bill also proposes to make amendments to the Planning and Development Act 2000 to the extent that the provisions of the 2000 Act have not yet been repealed by the 2024 Act. There is an ongoing transition across between the two legislations as the 2024 Act is phased in. As is apparent, many of the provisions of the Bill and the amendments it proposes to both the 2024 Act and the 2000 Act are technical in nature and relate to errors and oversights which have been identified in the 2024 Act. In many respects, these amendments are uncontroversial. However, it is arguably somewhat unsatisfactory that such a large number of technical amendments to the 2024 Act are deemed necessary so shortly after its enactment. This may reflect the view expressed by many stakeholders at the time that the enactment of the 2024 Act was rushed and it would have benefited from greater scrutiny. Planning law is particularly complex and technical. Any new legislation requires careful and considered scrutiny given its wide impact on society generally.
The foregoing observations highlight a further concern expressed by many stakeholders, which is the seemingly constant amendments to the planning code. In this regard, it is noted that the 2024 Act has already been materially amended by the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2025 and will be further amended by the Bill. It appears yet further amendments will be proposed arising from the proposed reform of judicial review which has been announced by the Minister for justice. This will also impact on this area. This process of seemingly constant amendment of the legislative code, which is justified in some circumstances, has an unfortunate effect of bringing a degree of complexity to the legislation and also injecting a large degree of uncertainty into the planning process which is arguably counterproductive to some degree.
We propose to focus in our written submission and to the extent that we can be of assistance to the committee in the area of judicial review procedures. That is probably the area where we have the greatest expertise and experience and can assist the committee to the greatest effect. Many of the amendments in the Bill are technical and do not raise significant policy or legal issues. However, Part 3 of the Bill proposes to amend Chapter 1 of Part 9 of the 2024 Act, which relates to judicial review of planning decisions. It is considered that this part of the Bill proposes significant changes to both the 2024 Act and the 2000 Act which require careful scrutiny. Chapter 1 of the 2024 Act introduces significant changes to the existing judicial review process such as, notably, the abolition of the requirement to seek leave to appeal for judicial review, changes to time limits commencing judicial review proceedings and ,importantly, changes to the legal standing, which is the requirement to establish sufficient interest before you can apply to obtain judicial review, together with procedural rules relating to such proceedings.
During the enactment of the 2024 Act, various stakeholders raised various concerns about the merits of these proposals and their legality and in particular their compliance with the requirements of EU law and the Aarhus Convention. The concerns remain. It is anticipated, with some degree of predictability, that some provisions of Chapter 1 of the 2024 Act may be subject to legal challenge in due course. That is obviously a matter for the courts. We are not offering a view on that other than offering the view that it is predictable that they will be open to challenge in relation to it. Whether they are successful will have to remain to be seen.
In summary, the Bill proposes to apply the provisions Chapter 1 of Part 9 of the 2024 Act, which was commenced in August 2025, to judicial review proceedings that may have been taken in respect of decisions made or acts done under the 2000 Act. Thus, upon commencement, the new provisions relating to the removal of the requirement to obtain leave and new rules relating to legal standing and sufficient interest will apply to decisions made under the 2000 Act. In other words, the 2024 provisions apply to provisions apply to decisions made under the 2000 Act. Within eight weeks of the commencement of the Bill, it is proposed to discontinue the provisions of sections 50 and 50A of the 2000 Act, which currently regulate judicial review under the 2000 Act. It is noted that the Bill proposes that section 50B of the Act of 2000 applies to costs associated with proceedings brought under either the 2024 Act or the 2000 Act until such time as Chapter 2 of the 2024 Act is commenced. As members may be aware, the 2024 Act has new proposals and a new cost regime in respect of judicial review. That is of separate concern to us. There are proposals in relation to cost capping of which members may be aware and which are the subject of our recently concluded public consultation procedure.
The purpose of these amendments is to bring the advantages of the new procedures under the 2024 Act into operation as soon as possible. However, it remains to be seen how these new provisions will operate in practice and if they will in fact confer the advantages anticipated. The amendments proposed by the Bill are transitional in nature and of a type which have in the past caused difficulties. We are in the territory of the retrospective application of legislation to a previous statutory regime. I am not saying that is necessarily unlawful but it is well recognised that is difficult territory. It is territory that sometimes can give rise to problems that are not foreseeable. We can enlarge upon that if necessary. The provisions will add a layer of complexity to the already complex legislative scheme which needs to be considered in assessing their effectiveness.
We consider that it is important that Part 3 of the Bill is given the considered scrutiny that it deserves. In the event the committee wishes to engage further with us, we are happy to do that. We have some more specific comments on aspects of the Bill. We can deal with those later.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I ask the last two submissions to keep it focused on the point. We are losing time. We will move on. I ask Mr. O'Connell to make his statement.
Mr. Conor O'Connell:
I thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to address it today. I will take the first page of the opening statement as read given the Chair's comments and move on to the specifics in relation to the proposals in the general scheme. Amendment of Part 3 of the principal Act extending development plans that are due to expire is important in the context of the current variation process to take account of the revised national planning framework, NPF, that local authorities are currently engaged in.
This process must produce more zoned lands for residential development. This provision will allow local authorities to concentrate their resources on the variation process rather than engaging in a full review of the development plan. Many development plans are due to expire between 2027 and 2029, and they must start the process two years in advance. The new development plan review process can then concentrate on a ten-year development plan period as contained in the Planning and Development Act 2024.
Most local authorities are well progressed with the required variations, as requested by the Government in response to the section 28 guidelines issued in July 2025. These variations have been drafted to a two-to-three-year horizon, having regard to when many current county and city development plans will expire. The general scheme of the proposed Bill before us today, however, requires that planning authorities not commence the review of their development plans under the 2000 Act but rather await implementation of Chapter 5 of Part 4 of the 2024 Act. Furthermore, it requires those planning authorities that have already commenced their development plan reviews to cease the review process and extend their plans until such time as they can start the process under the 2024 Act.
We understand and support the logic of these proposed provisions but there are uncertainties as to when the timeframe for the regional spatial and economic strategies, RSES, will be updated and, consequently, when the relevant provisions of Part 4 of the 2024 Act will come into effect. There is also uncertainty as to the timeframe for when this proposed general scheme will become a Bill and subsequently an Act to give effect to these provisions. Head 7 of the general scheme provides for the extension of the life of current development plans by up to 30 months. The implication of such extensions is that the current draft development plan variations will fall well short of the timeframe between now and when the new ten-year development plans will come into effect, that is, the current variations are intended to fill the gap of increased housing allocation numbers, typically for a two-to-three-year period, and thus they will not provide for that extended period for a further two and a half years when the new development plans will come into effect.
The Government must ensure it does not inadvertently create a vacuum as a consequence of extending the life of the current development plans where the current variations are operating to a much shorter timeframe, typically two to three years. A second round of variations to bring forward the required additional zoned land during that extended period seems inevitable and must be instructed of the planning authorities in due course. Furthermore, we believe those planning authorities that zone lands in local area plans rather than in the county development plan should be instructed to zone all the lands within their administrative areas in their county development plans rather than on a piecemeal andad hocbasis. This should be instructed of planning authorities by way of variation now and not await the extended timeframe for the new county development plans.
We welcome the proposal to clarify that any town with a population of 10,000 or more be defined as a "key town" and suggest that this be expanded to clarify that any town with a population of 50,000 or more be defined as a "city". Otherwise, these proposed amendments seem a reasonable approach in the context of aligning development plans and local authority resources over the coming few years.
Turning to head 12 on the amendment of section 285 of the principal Act, we very much welcome this change as we have witnessed on too many occasions individuals and organisations objecting to projects and developments where the project has little or no impact on them or their operations. The test of "sufficient interest" seems a reasonable approach, but we feel this is not strong enough and a more appropriate wording here would be "significant interest" to reduce the extent of challenges being brought against decisions of expert decision-making bodies. Applicants should be required to demonstrate how they will be impacted by the proposed development. Most of the other changes in respect of judicial reviews, JRs, seem to be a pragmatic approach following the introduction of new planning legislation.
Many of the other heads appear to be a wrapping-up process intended to address anomalies and errors in the principal Act. We welcome these, but ask that other matters also be addressed. We have detailed these points in our written submission. I am conscious I have 40 seconds left.
On the decision of the commission on appeal, we feel that section 109(7) of the principal Act is very unclear and appears to restrict the commission to only granting permission that is substantially the same as the permission originally granted by the planning authority. This is a departure from current practice, where the commission can take off one or more storeys or refuse one or more blocks of a development. However, this restriction only appears to apply to first-party appeals taken by the applicant "in relation to an application made by the appellant". It does not appear to apply to third-party appeals, and this appears to give the applicant fewer rights than a third party, which may not be constitutional.
In summary, we welcome the ongoing reform agenda within the planning and legal system so there can be greater opportunities to apply for planning permission and greater certainty with the process for the sake of all stakeholders. I thank the committee.
Ms Deirdre Scully:
I will be brief. Our submission is fairly brief anyway, so that makes it easier for me. I thank the committee for the opportunity to be here. I am a fellow of the Irish Planning Institute, IPI, and a member of the board of the IPI in a voluntary capacity. The IPI is the all-island professional body representing professional planners in all aspects of planning in Ireland and Irish planners overseas.
Our comments are mainly in relation to the general scheme. We welcome the provisions of the Bill, as it will give local authorities the opportunity to complete the ongoing development plan variations process, enable the space where there will be a more co-ordinated and coherent approach to forward planning across the planning hierarchy, and support the principle of plan-led development.
Importantly, the Bill addresses some of the most significant concerns raised by our members since the publication of the Planning and Development Act 2024, which coincided with the publication and update of the national planning framework, NPF, and the uncertainty as regards timing, so this is really positive. Also positive is the review of the regional spatial and economic strategies and how the ongoing variation timelines all coincide. The provisions help to address uncertainties in the system and will provide a clearer pathway for all local authorities in the co-ordination and preparation of the delivery of the next cycle of development plans. The legislation will also provide the opportunity to align the planning hierarchy in a co-ordinated way post the NPF review by setting ambitious but realistic timelines for the preparation of the RSESs.
Regarding the definition of "key town" - this has been raised already, so I will not repeat too much - some of the questions here for us concern whether it will dilute or change the role of the existing identified key towns, what it will mean for the commuter-led growth towns in the immediate Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly, EMRA, area where there will be a significant number of key towns, with populations over 10,000, and how that impacts where towns may be constrained. These are questions that will have to be addressed through guidance following the adoption of the Bill into an Act in future.
While the Bill establishes an essential legislative framework, the IPI emphasises the need for timely publication of the accompanying statutory guidance, the most important of which is obviously the development plan guidance, but also the full suite of existing guidance that will have to align under the 2024 Act, which will be critical in advance of the preparation of the next set of development plans. With the ten-year horizon, they will all need to be in line to avoid a situation where they will have to be retrospectively updated.
As a professional body representing practising planners operating daily in the planning system, the IPI highlights the importance of meaningful engagement with the institute in the development of this guidance and we offer ourselves to provide input and support to the Department in the drafting of any such guidance based on the practice and lived experience of the professionals within the system. This is particularly significant, given the complexity and extent of the 2024 legislation and the suite of regulations that are due, and will inform how the Act is interpreted in future. As part of this, we would ask that the implementation plan for the Planning and Development Act 2024, published in March 2025, be updated to provide an up-to-date source of information for all those working in the sector. The members of the IPI are ready to play their part in ensuring the successful implementation of the Planning and Development Act 2024 and the revised strategies and plans it puts in place.
I thank the committee again for the opportunity to speak and I am happy to answer any questions.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Before I go to the members, I acknowledge the short notice given to the witnesses in their invites. We made the decision as a committee that we wanted to do scrutiny and to do it straight away. We did not want to hold up the Bill. I put it on the record that I sincerely thank the witnesses for taking the time to come here at such short notice. Following the discussion, if there is information they feel they want to submit, I ask them to send that straight away to the clerk of the committee following the meeting so we can consider it when we are putting together the recommendations we will put into the pre-legislative scrutiny report.
We will go to our speaking rota now. I think we will go with seven minutes each and, hopefully, we might get a follow-up round. People might have come up with other questions afterwards. We will stick tightly to that time in case other members come in, because we do not have other apologies. I call Deputy Séamus McGrath.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all our witnesses for coming in on a Thursday afternoon. I am tight for time, so I will just give everyone the opportunity to have a say. I will start with the CCMA in relation to its opening statement. It was broadly positive towards the Bill before us. In terms of better alignment of planning policy in terms of development plans, regional plans and so on, that is all very welcome. The opening statement made a point about resources.
In terms of the local authorities’ ability to perform the functions in the context of the changing planning environment, how big an issue is that for their resources?
Mr. Liam Conneally:
To provide context, we are in constant engagement with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage with regard to this and other planning issues. In 2023, the ministerial action plan on planning resources was published and it identified a resource requirement of 541 personnel that the local government system required up to 2027. To date, we have in or around 217 positions filled. We have a request sanctioned for what I think is another 31 positions with the Department. We know they are the subject of discussions with the Department of public expenditure and reform. We hope those discussions are fruitful and quick because we need those.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am sorry, I have to speed Mr. Conneally up a bit.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank him. It is just that time is tight. I turn to the next group, the Planning, Environmental and Local Government Bar Association. I thank them for their opening statement and for being here. I note some of their concerns. I ask about the provision of establishing sufficient interest for there to be a judicial review undertaken. Surely it is a good thing that anyone who wants to undertake a judicial review has to demonstrate sufficient interest.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
There are different views and perspectives on it. I am not sure. Obviously, the new legislation has introduced a new requirement that you have to prove you are directly or indirectly materially affected. That is new. The courts will have to decide what that means. There is a degree of uncertainty about that. In my experience most people will meet that requirement. I do not think it will make any difference. I will give a practical example. Approximately one third of the cases in judicial reviews are taken by developers. They clearly meet that requirement.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Where does the association's concern come from?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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To qualify.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
We will have a plethora of case law on that. The advantages may have to be balanced against the uncertainty it is going to inject. That is the first thing. The second is the transitional provisions applying that have a degree of uncertainty. It could give rise to situations where people who anticipated decision making in the 2000 Act may challenge or question whether they are subject to this criterion under the 2024 Act, and whether that is in fact lawful. I note that prefacing this section is unsurprisingly a little note that says it is subject to further legal advice. To be clear, I am not saying it is necessarily unlawful; I am just saying that it is difficult territory. I anticipate challenges arising from its application and we are into the cost-benefit analysis of it.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is difficult territory, but I would argue it is well intentioned.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We have seen critical projects held up with judicial reviews and I would argue that often sufficient interest is not demonstrated. On that issue, one of the other key changes relates to cost implications. Again, I put it that if you are to undertake a judicial review, there has to be some risk involved in that for you. We cannot have judicial reviews undertaken where critical infrastructure or developments are held up and effectively someone can undertake that process without any implications.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
My answer to that is as a matter of international law, a matter of European law, and therefore domestic law because we ratified the Aarhus Convention, there are specific rules that apply with regard to certain challenges that raise environmental issues. There are protective cost rules that apply. Whether the Deputy thinks that is a good thing or a bad thing, and it is open to debate, it is a matter of international and EU law. It is not entirely correct to say that an applicant in all judicial review circumstances is entirely without risk. There are circumstances relating to it. At the moment, many applicants who take those proceedings will have to fund them themselves. In some circumstances there are lawyers who will act on a contingency fee basis-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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There appears to be a cost implications issue on environmental grounds if you are taking a case.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I understand.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
In fact, we had a plethora of case law about that, but it was eventually resolved after a lot of satellite litigation in relation to it. I will make two points. Not all cases fall within it. There is not entirely an absence of jeopardy, but there are special rules applied as a matter of international and European law, and you have to get lawyers who are willing to act for you on a contingency basis. That is not always the case. The Deputy may be familiar with the proposals relating to cost capping. The consultation process has closed on that. I urge him to read the Bar Council's submission on that, which comprehensively addresses it. It is a concern to us that people will effectively be deprived access to the courts.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Flynn for his answers.
I turn to the CIF. It is broadly positive towards the proposals in the Bill. I noted the point on section 109 relating to the commission's role and its ability to change the original decision. The CIF believes that is unclear. Will Mr. O'Connell elaborate on the concerns?
Mr. Kieran Rush:
We are obviously coming from the perspective of the applicant, the first party. We cannot understand that particular part of the criteria for the board assessing a planning application. First, it seems to differ depending on whether it is a first- or a third-party appeal. The exact words are in there. I cannot understand that. The legislation as currently drafted seems to be saying that the commission does not have the scope to alter the permission. As the Deputy probably knows, it is common that something is granted but block A and block B are refused, or two storeys are taken off of it. The current system seems to be work fine, and I do not know why anybody would want to change it, to be honest.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I would have thought the CIF would welcome that the commission is not able to materially alter a decision, like remove a block of an apartment.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that, but I am over time. We will come back to it.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We have flexibility as a couple of members have left. That is why I did not hurry you.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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There will be a fair amount of overlap of interest in the questions, so there is no problem. Unfortunately, I have some specific questions, but we will get a second and third round in. Mr. Conneally made the case strongly in that workforce review for the extra 541 staff. He said that 217 had been recruited. However, during that period the local authorities have also lost planning staff. Does he know what the net change is between 2023 and now? It is great that they have 217, but how many less have they got?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The question is, during the period where they have gained the 217, does he have a figure for the planning staff they have lost? If he does not, that is okay, and he can share it with the secretariat.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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They are in the planning department. To be clear, is Mr. Conneally saying that in the period of those sanctions - there were a couple of different ones - the 217 is a net gain? Are there now 217 more staff in our planning authorities at local government level than there were before those sanctions?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. That is good to know.
Without getting into the intricacies of the Bill, because we did that in some detail with the Department, my key question for Mr. Flynn relates to the potential risk of additional litigation and delay arising from two issues. One is the issue raised, rightly, of retrospective application of the 2024 Act's JR provisions to planning consents granted in the 2000 Act. The Department is telling us it will have all of the 2024 Act commenced by the end of this year, which means there will be this initial period of change and possible confusion and then the substantive change of Part 4 of the 2024 Act. How concerned are PELGBA members that those two periods of additional change could lead to delay, satellite litigation or an elongation of decision-making within the courts?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
There is significant enough concern about that. As I said, this is difficult enough territory at the best of times, when you try to apply legislation retrospectively in relation to it. As the Deputy identified and we discussed, there are potential circumstances where it could give rise to litigation. It needs a little cost-benefit analysis of whether the perceived advantages of bringing in the new system before the 2024 Act is fully commenced are worth it vis-à-vis the possibility that the two systems could conflict. One of the difficulties is it is very hard to predict how this might play out. There are obvious examples of the sufficient interest requirement and decisions made under the 2000 Act. For example, people may have assumed that they would be able to take a judicial review having regard to the sufficient interest provisions of the 2000 Act but find themselves, under the 2024 Act, with the possibility of raising arguments about prejudice and so on. It is a risk.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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For the benefit of members who did not go through the very detailed sessions we did with all the witnesses about the 2024 Act, I ask Mr. Flynn, in non-legal terms if he can, to explain this. If one aspect of this Bill is challenged in one case, will that have a ripple effect in the sense that other legal challenges could all be delayed until that one case is resolved? Similarly, for example, if somebody challenges the new cost rules - these are not a matter for this committee but for another - does that essentially pause, a little like the Heather Hill delay, large numbers of other cases until those matters are resolved in the courts?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
There is that difficulty. What happens, if a case becomes a test case about a new provision, is that other people then say, and the courts take the view, that perhaps they should await the outcome of the test case before other cases are considered. You then get people making applications for adjournments. This has happened. It happened in the Heather Hill case when there was uncertainty about the costs. We were awaiting the Supreme Court decisions on costs and then lots of other cases effectively got stayed.
There is a similar situation. I will give another tangible example in relation to planning. There will be a Supreme Court decision in a case, Coolglass, which will be a very important decision as to how the climate Act impacts. There are lots of cases backed up behind that awaiting it. That is what tends to happen.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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To put it in tangible terms, for example, in Heather Hill, if memory serves Mr. Flynn well, will he tell us how long that case took? Does he know roughly how many other cases were paused while Heather Hill was being determined? This is just roughly.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It was almost three years, or two and a half years. Roughly how many other cases ended up being paused in the courts because of that? Was it in the tens, twenties or thirties?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. O'Connell knows my view that I would like to see far less litigation of planning, although I do not share the view of the Government on how to do it. There is one thing I think is interesting, which I am keen to get his view on. Last year saw a significant increase in judicial reviews by members of the development community. The largest growth of JRs was from folks within the development community, with a 10% increase in JRs on the year before. Interestingly, probably for the first time in quite some time, there were more JRs of housing decisions instigated by the development community than by environmental groups or third parties. Again, there was an increase of 10%, and a significant increase in the number of JRs in relation to transport. I only say that because, often, the public debate only focuses on environmental NGOs and residents but, as Mr. Flynn rightly pointed out, it is little more complex. Last year, as most categories of development community initiated JRs rose, the number of environmental NGO or resident-initiated JRs fell significantly.
What is going on in the development community that is seeing that increase? Is it Mr. O'Connell's hope as somebody who has come to this committee, and I have some sympathy when he makes the case that he would like to see fewer JRs, that the changes will see fewer JRs from the development community, given that they are becoming an increasingly significant part of the overall quantum?
Mr. Conor O'Connell:
I thank the Deputy very much for giving me the opportunity to reply to that. I can field in some statistics and analysis on the increase in judicial reviews from the development community. The vast majority of judicial reviews taken by the development community, from our examination of them, are to increase housing targets within local authority development plans or other policy instruments that restrict housing growth. The vast majority of judicial reviews taken by our sector are to increase housing supply, not to reduce it or to challenge planning decisions. If I could expand-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Let me cut across Mr. O'Connell. I accept what he said, although there are also significant JRs involving landowners who do not want to pay the residential zoned land tax, RZLT. Does Mr. O'Connell accept that these do cause delay? The big concern about JRs that many of us have, whether the intention behind them is right or wrong, and I am not in any way castigating or casting aspersions on the intention, is that the negative consequence, irrespective of the intention, is that it causes delay. Does Mr. O'Connell accept, notwithstanding the intentions of the CIF members who are taking those JRs, that they are causing delay because, ultimately, that causes delay in submitting planning applications and decisions, particularly where they lose?
Mr. Conor O'Connell:
I do not think any of the delays that may be happening or occurring are very significant. In fact, I am not aware of any delays judicial reviews are causing to housing provision. The vast majority of judicial reviews are trying to achieve the exact opposite result. It has to be said we have seen an increase from 2016, from somewhere between ten and 20 judicial reviews up to where we are now, where there were 130 last year or 147 the year before.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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There is no dispute about that.
Mr. Conor O'Connell:
When we are talking about the impact of judicial reviews on housing supply, in particular, or infrastructure delivery, we have to talk about the number of residential units affected by each individual judicial review. For instance, there is the expansion of the judicial review system in relation to water connection agreements or decisions of Government on the apartment guidelines.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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With the Chair's indulgence, I will make a final point. Whether it is a member of the development community or a resident who takes a JR against a housing development, the delay is the same. Let us be very clear about that. Last year, there were 19 JRs of residential developments taken by members of the development community, which was up by 10%. That was more than the number of JRs taken by residents' associations. I am not in any way suggesting either group should or should not take those JRs. My experience is that the majority of people who take JRs believe they have a legitimate cause. The only point I will make, and it is important we have a honest discussion, is that both sets of JRs delay. If you lose the JR at the end and, for example, you do not get the increased density or whatever, the delay is significant.
My last question is this. Does Mr. O'Connell hope-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I think we might have to go to-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Sure, but it is a question I asked and with the indulgence of the Chair-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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A short answer.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Does Mr. O'Connell hope the JR changes here will lead to a reduction in the number of JRs from members of his organisation or the development community? We obviously want them all to come down.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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100%.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Does Mr. O'Connell think this Act will help reduce the number of developer JRs?
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank all the witnesses for coming in and for their opening statements. In the CIF statement, there are four points, of which we are all aware, relating to the housing crisis: more zoned land, more infrastructure, more planning permissions and more funding for houses.
From my experience as a councillor working on the last county development plan, we tried to plan for population growth using census figures that were already five years out of date. We were given targets that did not reflect reality and were little help when making the zoning decisions, unfortunately. The fact that we have had to go back and rezone land clearly shows the problem with using out-of-date data. It is not good enough. My question to the CCMA and the IPI is on how important it is that development plans be based on the latest census figures and that there be a set point to review and update those plans when new census data becomes available. Do they believe that this should be built into the legislation?
Mr. Liam Conneally:
To respond from a CCMA perspective, when you are reviewing or doing a variation to a plan, you should have the most up-to-date information that you possibly can have. It is not possible all the time to have census data that is current. We project growth into the figures that we put into our core strategies and our city and county development plans. The variation process picks up on anything that is lost in terms of the residential land zoning quantum in particular. The recent round of variations will have adequate zoned land from a residential perspective. The variation process is there to pick up on anything that is lost on the initial data.
Ms Deirdre Scully:
One of the things that is important about the 2024 Act is the ten-year horizon, and the strategic environmental assessment piece is written with a 12-year horizon. The importance of this is that there is a strategic, long-term view about the direction of the county. Even though you can only rezone the land based on the current information you have, which is hopefully up to date if everything is in line, with the NPF, RSES and development plans all coming right one after the other and informed by the most up-to-date data, the NPF is now to be aligned in the publication of an authority's targets to follow on immediately after the census. That is the shape that the Department is after.
What is important is that the development plans are then written with a long-term horizon or direction as to where they see their key towns, county or city developing. Even though not all of the land in that long-term vision is zoned initially, if you do your five-year review mid-plan, you, the developer sector and everybody involved know where the council is going to go next as regards investment. That knowledge is also known by the key infrastructure providers, the education sector, Uisce Éireann and the National Transport Authority, NTA, so that growth is planned in a particular direction and everybody can see what direction that county or city is going to head in over the next 20 years. That is an important part that we will be looking for to come through in the guidance that is issued by the Department as regards city and county development plan preparation to follow on through the changes that have come through the legislation. That is something the IPI will be keen to engage on.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The judicial review system is broken in its current form. Environmental planning law is often used to delay or block housing, especially social housing, as well as public utility services and commercial developments. The reason for this is that there is little risk or cost involved. New facts should be presented from the outset to justify the case being given standing. If the case is won, full costs should be awarded. If the case is lost, none should be. I firmly believe that we need a better way to filter cases so that only genuine public interest environmental cases proceed and cases that are using the system as a technical blocking tool are stopped. Would removing the leave to appeal stage help filter out weak or technical cases while allowing those with genuine environmental concerns to be heard?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
I thank the Deputy for that question. There are differing views on removing leave in terms of whether it is a good development or a bad development. At the moment, we have a filtration system - a leave system - that is a relatively low bar, but you have to satisfy the court that you have a prima facie arguable case. You cannot just issue the proceedings in relation to it. You can issue the proceedings, but you have to go into court and say, "This is what we are saying. This decision should be overturned and these are the reasons why". A judge looks at that and then assesses those, albeit at a low standard. That is a threshold. It results in a filtering out of some cases. Sometimes, it results not in a case being stopped completely, but in elements of the case being stopped completely, if the Deputy understands what I mean. In other words, a person might have four grounds and the judge might agree with grounds Nos. 1 and 2 but disagrees with the other two. That is significant in its own right because it reduces the time the case may take in relation to it.
I respectfully disagree with the Deputy that the general narrative is that cases are being taken on a technical basis. The courts have made clear in many decisions in relation to it that technical grounds are not sufficient to grant judicial review. There are lots of decisions in relation to that that I could cite to the Deputy. Abolishing leave paradoxically removes that filtration process. The justification for it is it saves a certain amount of time, maybe a couple of weeks or six weeks. My view is that I am not entirely convinced it is good move. This is a personal view. There was merit in that filtration process, albeit at a low bar. In other words, you had a low fence to hop, but you had a fence to hop in any event. That is gone now, so people just issue the proceedings in relation to it. The concern that I would have is that, because the filtration is gone, that is a negative and it is not outweighed by the positive of reducing the time. I also have a broader concern that we may see an awful lot more lay litigants entering into the field. That is associated with the issue around costs.
In relation to costs, I have already explained in response to the Deputy's colleague, Deputy McGrath, that the reason we have a particular costs rule is because of obligations under international and EU law. Rightly or wrongly, but for perfectly good reasons, international and European law states that these types of case raise a public interest. If there is an environmental ground, there should be what is known as a protective costs regime in relation to it. That does not completely remove the jeopardy from applicants because they can be subject to costs in some cases. It does not necessarily mean that they can take any case they want because they have to either pay their lawyers to do it or convince lawyers to act on a contingency basis, but lawyers will only act on a contingency basis when they have analysed and filtered the case effectively and said there is a reasonable chance of it succeeding. I am not going to say to anybody that I am going to take a hopeless case for them. There are two reasons for that: it would be ethically wrong of me to do that and there is nothing in it for me. Why would we do that? My colleagues frequently have to say to developer clients, local authorities, residents and environmental NGOs that we have looked at a case and our professional analysis is that the commission's decision is not judicial reviewable.
I welcome the fact that the Deputy has said that, if people win cases, they should be entitled to their costs. I would highlight to the Deputy that the current proposals in relation to costs negate that fundamental principle. The Deputy has put his finger on an important principle that if people establish illegality to the satisfaction of a court, they should be entitled to get their legal costs. They should not be out of pocket. They should be entitled to get their legal costs, which should be adjudicated, as it currently is, by an independent costs adjudicator. If people, the State or An Coimisiún Pleanála think the costs are too high, they can go before the independent adjudicator and say the costs are too high and they need to be reduced by 20% or 30%. Under the current proposal, though, that is not going to occur. That process is going to be removed. I urge the Deputy to read the Bar Council's submission and the other submissions in relation to that, particularly the Law Society's submission.
I hope this has been of assistance to the Deputy.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Flynn.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I have to be honest, this stuff gives me a pain in the head. I was not through the detailed scrutiny previously. I suppose I only have a couple of questions. In the round, what has prompted this legislation is a narrative from certain quarters that loads of people who should not be objecting are objecting and slowing everything down, and we need new legislation that prevents that from happening, which will speed things up and allow us to develop the housing and infrastructure we need to do things.
People are saying this legislation will achieve that. There is a concern, however, that it may achieve the opposite of that and that the confusion between the new legislation and the old legislation, and the legal uncertainty around that, could mean we get tied up in legal knots with people taking cases and so on. In the round, who do the witnesses think is right? Is this going to slow things down in developing housing or is it going to speed things up or is it impossible to say until we actually see it work in practice?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
There are a couple of things. I agree with the Deputy when he says there is a particular narrative around judicial reviews that has been advanced in recent months, in my view in a fairly co-ordinated manner. I do not accept that narrative to be factually correct or to be evidentially based in relation to it. Judicial review is extremely important. It is not a merits-based appeal. It is a form of judicial scrutiny over planning decisions and other forms of decisions in relation to it. It is actually quite a restrictive regime even under the existing Act and it is going to be made even more restrictive under this legislation in relation to it. As I believe the committee has heard evidence of, the number of cases and the actual number of decisions that are subject to judicial review in the overall planning system is microscopic. In terms of housing, about which everybody is concerned, we know from the data that housing judicial reviews have dropped. A judicial review of housing has to be looked in context. Many of those cases occurred in the context of the social housing legislation, which is widely agreed to have been a misstep. That legislation was misconceived and we have replaced it with the large-scale residential development legislation, which I think is much superior legislation. Also the difficulty-----
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Does Mr. Flynn mean the SHDs?
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The infamous SHDs.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
Yes, I must have said a different thing. The Deputy is quite correct about that. I think everybody accepts that that was a legislative misstep. We have moved on from that and are now beginning to see the judicial reviews of housing stabilising. Of course, housing is more than just a judicial review. When talking with my colleagues beforehand we think it is about 14,000 extant units where permission is granted but we still cannot build them. There is a multiplicity of reasons for that, such as financing and so on. That is the problem we have in relation to it.
From our perspective, whenever provisions and legislation like this are introduced we are going to have a period of churn in relation to it. A fairly widely held view among lawyers might be that the benefits of the new legislation may be difficult to assess and may be questionable in the round. I believe that a simple thing is to just increase judicial resources. We have three judges assigned to hear planning judicial reviews. The President of the High Court has said he needs more judicial resources. If we appointed another two or three it would-----
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Speed the whole thing up.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
Yes, it would speed the whole thing up in those matters and there may be a much greater effect. The difficulty is that whenever new provisions are introduced, and I have mentioned the materially affected, it may be that people are not bringing cases forward case or arguing cases forward in relation to it. I have questioned in my opening statement the constant churn of planning legislation. We seem to be at one or two pieces of legislation every year-----
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I agree with Mr. Flynn that the narrative and the premise of all of this is completely misplaced. I agree completely but in the heel of the reel are the architects of this going to rue the day they thought this would sort the problem out, and from what they hope to resolve it may actually make it worse, even from their own point of view?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
I do not know. One cannot offer that. It can be very predictive. There are risks associated with the regime and it is likely that we will have, and it is probably predictable with a reasonable degree of certainty, a plethora of cases as the legislation plays through in relation to it. That may have entirely counterproductive effects in practical terms. As to how far that goes and how it pans out I do not think anybody can predict that.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I think Mr. O'Connell was looking to come in there on that.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I was going to ask Mr. O'Connell. Given that this was kind of what I expected Mr. Flynn would say, is Mr. O'Connell not concerned by that? What does Mr. O'Connell think about it?
Mr. Conor O'Connell:
There is an expression "Things can only get better". I will expand on that a small bit. This narrative that has been spoken about here is not a narrative. There is evidential basis there for the number of units that have been objected to over the last ten years, including the expansion of the range, the extent and the number of judicial reviews. So, it is not a narrative. There is evidence there. It has gone from ten to 20 in 2016 up to where it is now with 130 to 147. Tens of thousands of units are being affected by judicial reviews. Not only that, the critical infrastructure report published on 4 December said that every single piece of critical infrastructure in Ireland is objected to via the judicial review process. We also have not discussed the fact that these are the cases that reach the courts. How many cases do not reach the courts? There is also the expansion in the use of judicial review in relation to water connection decisions, as we saw just before Christmas, and also the judicial review against the Government decision to change the apartment design standards, which means now, at this very moment in time, tens of thousands of apartments that were on the design desks of the design houses are now stalled because we do not know when we will see the results of those judicial reviews.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Can I comment-----
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Can I just say a very last point? Cherrywood out my way is the biggest residential development in the country I think. I do not know whether there were any judicial reviews against any of the development out there. In fact, personally I campaigned for them to accelerate the development because they had the SDZ and they got the planning permissions but the problem was getting the developers to build the stuff. It dragged on and on. Consider the proposed town centre, which the whole thing hinged on. The development was supposed to be a ten-minute town, the developers built the residential units and they then wanted to increase density, but now the developers are saying they do not want to build the town centre. They are trying to put the local authority and the community over a barrel because they do not want to build the town centre. I am assuming it is because they do not reckon they can make enough profit out of it. To me, this is an instance that kind of flies in the face of Mr. O'Connell's assessment. This is the biggest residential development in the entire country and as an example, it completely flies in the face of Mr. O'Connell's analysis. We were fighting to get them to do it but the developers were the ones that systematically dragged their heels and even now are not delivering.
Mr. Conor O'Connell:
I will make a general comment. I would be very reluctant to comment on any particular individual development but the Deputy mentioned a town centre. I presume that means an element of commercial. We have seen what has happened in relation to commercial development in recent times with the lack of funding available there for certain types of office developments for instance. The other thing I would say in relation to developers is that no developer will ever drag their heels in an economy or a society that needs housing. The big issue in relation to many developments that are stalled or cannot go ahead is because apartments in particular are difficult to fund and are difficult to get funding streams for. It would suggest, without referencing any particular development, that were you to analyse where developments are stalled, it would be due to funding issues or infrastructure issues.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I can only say to have a closer look and watch this space in Cherrywood.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for being with us today on a very wet afternoon. I am approaching this from my involvement in homelessness. I have a homeless café and I am the head of a charity that deals with people who are on the housing emergency accommodation list and are rough sleepers. Delays in housing delivery show up at our doors on Pearse Street immediately when the housing is not provided. I understand the need to align and tidy up the planning system but we are also in a housing emergency. Section 28 was intended as a short-term response to that reality. My question is whether the Bill helps delivery now or does it risk pushing it down the road. If section 28 housing numbers cannot be delivered in towns covered by the local area plans unless those plans are separately varied, and this Bill allows existing plans to be extended for up to three years, how does that help in this housing emergency?
Mr. James Leonard:
We welcome the section 28 guidelines in broad terms, in terms of trying to align the national planning framework, NPF, with the regional spatial and economic strategies, RSES, and the development plans. The scope of the section 28 guidelines was broad. The Senator mentioned that we are looking at a short period to try to deal with the immediate term. That seems to be the focus of most of the variations, but the guidelines were quite broad. They spoke about longer term opportunity sites and working to a two plus ten-year timeframe. They also spoke about the development plans being reviewed in that context. We would have concerns, as have been set out in the opening statement, where, as a consequence of the general scheme, the development plans are being extended and we are moving in another short-term step. Rather than a two- or three-year period, we are now looking at a double step of short-termism before we get to the ten-year planning horizon. That is unfortunate, but we understand the logic behind it.
The scale of the challenge is huge, as the Senator says. We have to deliver 300,000 new homes by the end of 2030. The section 28 guidelines note an unmet demand of 140,000 homes over a period of seven years from 2017 to 2024. That has continued in 2025. We are about 20,000 shy of where we ought to be in 2025. It seems critically important to our minds that the variations are substantive in nature and that they would seek to move the dial to increase supply. We do not feel they have done that, by and large, and have concerns. Given that the period has been extended before the development plans can commence, and the variations have gone through the process, with many having been advertised and the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR, having commented on many of them, our concern is that they do not cater for that additional period, and therefore we will fall even further short.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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That is my point. Does it risk pushing it down the road?
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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If the development plans are being extended, it seems that section 28, certainly in my area in Kildare and Naas, is not unlocking any new zoning, yet we are crying out for new zoning. Will housing grind to a halt and will we risk a bigger emergency?
Mr. James Leonard:
It is varied across the local authorities. Some have simply removed phase 2 zonings, for example, while others have rezoned lands that could be brought forward in the immediate term. We feel it has not gone far enough. We agree with the Senator and have grave concerns in that regard. Ms Scully made the point earlier about the longer term. We all welcome the ten-year horizon and the clarity that gives all stakeholders, utility providers, the development sector and everybody. We are just waiting longer to get to that longer term horizon that gives certainty to everybody and allows us all to work to that longer timeframe. It seems to us that it is quite likely that the planning authorities will have to have another go at this with a second round of variations, given the fact that the development plans are likely to be deferred.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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We will have to fix the fix.
Mr. James Leonard:
Fix the fix indeed. It is a double step. The scope of those that have not progressed could be expanded. It would be terrible if the current variations based on that reduced scope or terms of reference were the only move that was made, given that the interim period is now doubling in length. We are waiting for five years before we get to see ten-year plans being adopted, so we should share those concerns.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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Is Mr. O'Connell confident that will be the case?
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I have a question for the CCMA. The Bill assumes that local authorities can extend the existing plans, potentially by up to 30 months, while at the same time implementing section 28 variations, aligning with revised data, and preparing new ten-year development plans. I deal with various local authorities and know that the capacity in local authorities is limited and that there are real staffing shortages. Are the witnesses confident we can deliver housing at scale under this Bill? If the capacity is not there, as I mentioned, what does that mean for housing delivery and for homeless people who are queueing up at the Lighthouse?
Mr. Liam Conneally:
I am confident that local authorities can zone sufficient residential land to cater for the housing needs. Now that we know that the current plan period will be extended in this scheme, there is more certainty from our perspective. We know we are going into a sequence of ten-year plan cycles. In that process, do not forget that, with the current section 13 variation that is happening, those variations will happen in the future for the ten-year development plans too. That capacity is still in Part 3 of the 2024 legislation. I am confident and think that the planning system will rise to the challenge.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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Is the narrative that people are better paid outside local authorities for doing the same job elsewhere a real issue?
Mr. Liam Conneally:
That is an easy question because it is a matter of fact. When we get people into the system, we keep them. That has been a trend in public service through the decades. The key for us is getting those graduates. The number of graduates that we took in last year was a real game-changer for us in the local government sector. We traditionally would not have been involved in the milk round at third level but now we are front and centre in that. We are getting these people into the system early, training them, and bringing them in as graduates. I thank the LGMA and OPR for the help they have given us with graduate placement. We are introducing planning apprenticeships at third level so that people can learn while they are training as planners. That is new but necessary and will yield significant dividends to get more additionality in the planning system.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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I will start with the Construction Industry Federation on a very light note. It wants more zoned land, more infrastructure, more planning permissions, and more funding for houses. Would it like us to build them for it, too?
On section 109, I think Mr. Rush is saying that the board or commission has the right to amend a planning permission grant, so it could grant two blocks and refuse one block. He is afraid that it will only be a yes or a no, where it grants what is permitted by the council or refuses it. Is that what he is indicating?
Mr. Kieran Rush:
When the Bill, now the Act, first came out, we went through it and focused on the areas that we were concerned about. I genuinely could not understand that section. We referred it to a couple of lawyers. They came back and could not give any clarity on it. All I am really asking for is for that section to be looked at again to see if clarification is needed on it or if it needs to be reworded. I do not even know what it is trying to achieve. Usually, I can see what it is trying to achieve but maybe it is clumsily worded. I do not know what the aim is here. That is all I am asking.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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In relation to key towns and the 10,000, sometimes I think that the worst thing we did was put the NPF on a legislative footing. Everything is now down to percentages, growth rates, what type of town you are in, what level of town you are in, and how many houses you can build in that town. It has become bizarre. In Wicklow, 82% of housing growth is allocated to the five key towns, which only have 50% of the population growth, so 18% is being divided over the other 40 settlements and the whole rural area, for the remaining growth of 50%. Something is wrong there and our rural towns and villages will collapse. My question to Ms Scully and the others is about what long term is. I think we do not think far enough into the distance. Sometimes, I think our development plans should be looking at 30 or even 40 years, so that we know in advance where we need that critical infrastructure, because it is taking so long to deliver.
What do the witnesses believe is the ideal horizon or long term for our county development plans?
Ms Deirdre Scully:
It is one of those questions. It is both at the same time, is it not? It is a matter of looking at the timelines, the likes of the NTA strategy and the infrastructure that is planned and how long it takes from having a vision. I sat through the 2016 presentation of, I think, the DTO strategy, or whatever it was at the time. I refer to the 2011 one. Some of these projects are lifetime ones. As regards the greater Dublin strategic drainage project, the first study was done way back in the early 2000s as to what investment is needed. That has eventually led to where we are not quite yet as regards both the expansion of Ringsend, which has been delivered, and the Clonshaugh site, which has not and has been snarled in judicial review, JR, issues. One thing that is important is that for all those big infrastructure projects that are capable of catering for very large population growth, you need to think in 30-year horizons because big infrastructure projects cater for 30 to 40 years' worth of growth, and if you do not intend to support the investment with that future population, the cost-benefit analysis for that infrastructure is not there. Adamstown is a good example of where train lines went in first and the infrastructure and the housing has followed. That housing needs to keep being delivered to justify the investment the State has made. You have to be flexible and adaptable, however, and that is what is critical in the development plans.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate that. I think there was some concern from the construction industry about the review of the RSES and the review of the county development plans. Mr. Conneally clearly outlined, as regards the timeframe he gave, that all the RSESs should be completed by 2028, so there is another year there for the county development plans to be aligned, I think. Is that right?
Mr. Liam Conneally:
A Chathaoirligh, before I come in on that, as regards my contribution on key towns, first of all, it is really important that the current key towns and the RSESs retain their status. From a selfish perspective, in Galway, there are key towns that are not at the 10,000 threshold, and we want to keep those towns that are identified in the current RSESs as key towns, so that provision in the heads is welcome and crucial.
We want the RSESs reviewed as quickly as possible in order that we can get on with the review of the ten-year development plans as quickly as possible. If we could expedite that, I would be very grateful for the legislation.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Doyle was looking to get in on a point.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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I will come back, if I may, because I have only eight to ten minutes left.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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He just wants to clarify something.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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The witnesses have to put other minds at ease, not mine. That is the issue.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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As regards Mr. Flynn and Mr. Doyle, I probably should have focused most of my time on the whole JR process. Do they think the current process is fit for purpose?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
It could be improved in many ways but it plays an important role within the system. It could be improved and could be speeded up with the addition of more resources. The key, though, is that judicial review arises only if there are poor-quality decisions. Judicial review is relevant only if there are decisions which are unlawful.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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Let us take some examples of critical infrastructure in this country. We will take within my county the Arklow wastewater treatment plant, which was referred to every court in the land, possibly. That delayed it for 25 years because of one person and because of the impact it would have. The out pipe was going to disturb a sand dune. That wastewater treatment plant took 32 years to deliver because of one individual. Where is the common good of the 10,000 people of the town of Arklow, which has seen raw sewage discharged into the Avoca river for all those 32 years?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
I am not familiar with the particular case. I will just make a couple of points about that matter. Presumably, if somebody instigated a legal challenge against the proposed treatment plant, the courts reviewed that and the person must have been successful to some degree if it was going on for 30 years.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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It was down to the principle of the Aarhus Convention and environmental grounds, but raw sewage was being pumped into a river.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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The JR process for the common good of the people of Arklow was not fit for purpose in that example.
In a more modern example, which the witnesses would be aware of, planning for the new Arklow wastewater treatment plant started in 2019, at the very same time as the greater Dublin drainage scheme, which, again, is to improve the quality of life for the majority of Dublin. Where is the common good being served with the JR process there?
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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I am just asking.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
Yes. I ask him to just hold on on that matter. The greater drainage scheme - let us just call it that - was subject to judicial review. That judicial review process actually took about a year and a half. It then went back to the board and, for a combination of reasons, it took four years for the board to make a decision on it. That is where the real time was lost on it. By the way, the judge looked at what had occurred in that case and Uisce Éireann did not properly notify the Environmental Protection Agency, as is required under the legislation, that it was going to discharge a very large amount of sewage into the sea. The legislation, which was enacted by the Oireachtas and which gives effect to European law on this, said that was what should be done. The judge looked at this and said, "I am sorry, this is an illegality but, moreover, it is not a trivial illegality but an illegality which I consider warrants the quashing of the decision." It went back to judicial review. The real delay occurred with the board. Then it was judicially reviewed the second time, and that judicial review, as the Senator knows, has been settled on terms. However, I think it is a matter of public record that it was acknowledged that, the second time around, in fact, the notification procedures were unsatisfactory, and that will be-----
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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I am conscious of my time. I accept what Mr. Flynn is saying, but things are being dragged through the courts on technical grounds-----
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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-----and not on the principle of what the project is trying to achieve, which is an environmental good for the whole of the east coast of Ireland.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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Has the Aarhus Convention been implemented equally across every country in Europe, or is each country in Europe interpreting and implementing it differently?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
The Aarhus Convention is an international legal agreement, so it is matter for every member state as to how it goes about doing that. A further layer to it is that it forms part of European law so, in other words, the European Union has implemented it and has done so specifically through a number of directives, namely, the EIA directives, the SEA directives and the habitats directives. It is up to member states as to how they transpose that.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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So it can be transposed differently and interpreted differently in the various countries.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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From a point of view of clarity-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am conscious of the time. We have to move on.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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-----while the Aarhus Convention is across the whole of Europe, it is transposed into each national law differently and can be interpreted differently because the courts system and everything are different in every country.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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There is not equality across the whole EU.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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We are not arguing about the core principles; we are arguing about how they are transposed and implemented.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We will move on. I know none of us have done so but I remind members not to mention any current judicial reviews taking place on any case.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I know it is, yes.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Please do not mention anything like that. I call Deputy Ó Broin.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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We will return to debating the planning section of the Bill but I will make a couple of comments on JRs because it an area where the discussions get very heated, outside and inside the Chamber. It is important that we consider JRs with a certain degree of calmness, so I will make a couple of observations. I am strongly of the view that when somebody takes a decision to judicially review a planning decision, it is a symptom of something having gone wrong somewhere in the process. That is my view and not a comment on the intention behind the JR. If somebody thinks that a decision was made unlawfully, whether, for example, it is a developer who believes that densities have not been complied with or whether it is an environmental group and environmental legislation, somebody thinks a law has been broken. The two things that a committee like ours must think about are, how do we sensibly find legislation and policy reforms that reduce the number of those cases, because I think we are all agreed that we want less stuff in the courts? Also, for the ones that do get to the courts, because there will always be judicial reviews, how do we make sure good quality legal decisions are made in a timely manner? For me, those are the two questions.
I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett on one thing. There has been a political narrative, and I am talking about the political process, not the development community, that has sought to suggest that the majority of JRs taken on infrastructure cases are not by people who actually believe that the law has been broken but have been taken for other reasons. I think that has been part of a narrative coming from Ministers. It does not actually help us fix the problem.
I will make two observations. First, and it is repeat a point Mr. Flynn made, if we had six judges in the planning and environmental court, and one of those judges was roving across the State hearing some of the cases outside of Dublin, and if there were additional administrative and backroom supports, the speed with which judicial reviews would be heard would increase dramatically. In fact, I would go one step further than Mr. Flynn. I think the good practice guidelines of the High Court could reasonably be put on a statutory footing so that there could be notional timelines, subject to adequate resourcing, for JRs, like what this committee has long argued for, which is notional timelines for planning permissions.
Second, Senator Casey is right in what he said about legal challenges to the wastewater treatment plant in his constituency that was delayed. The one thing on which I would disagree with him is that is not the reason raw sewage was being pumped into the sea. I agree with him in terms of delays regarding the new plant. That wastewater treatment plant, as we know from the EPA's report, was one of 40 that, over a very long time, had not been properly maintained or repaired, and that is the cause of the waste. That is not to say-----
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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There is no wastewater treatment plant. It was known but-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The plant we are talking about and the sewage the Senator is talking about was because of a lack of investment. I am not disagreeing with the argument he made but the legal case was not the ultimate cause of the sewage spill. We have 40 agglomerations across this State that are currently subject to an EU infringement procedure because chronic underinvestment in our water and wastewater treatment system over decades has led to raw sewage pumping into our rivers, lakes and seas. They are matters of fact that are important. That is not to disagree with the central point made by the Senator. I have some sympathy for it?
We also have to accept that there are times when the cause of the legal challenge is a bad application, a bad decision or a difference of interpretation of the law. I think this committee would be much better placed, rather than trying to blame people for this, that or the other, to discuss what is the most sensible way to make sure that the applications and decisions are to the highest quality of standard. That means proper resources for planning authorities, the board and the courts. Then, when JRs are taken, they are dispensed with in a timely manner.
My big worry, and I have said this repeatedly during discussions on the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill, and the Irish Planning Institute and its president at the time made it very clear, that if we get the legal provisions in this wrong, whatever the intention is, it will have the opposite impact of what people want, which is fewer JRs and more timely decisions. For me, that is the debate that this committee needs to have.
I have one query for Mr. Leonard. The Department is telling us something different about the interaction between the 30-month or two and a half year delay for some development plan reviews and the material alterations that are currently under way. I fully agree with the position of the Construction Industry Federation that the housing needs demand assessment was a chronic underestimation and that fed through into housing strategies and zoning. My own local authority is doing a good job at the moment in terms of its material alteration review. The Department seemed to indicate to us that only a small number of local authorities will have that section of this Act apply in regard to the two and a half year delay. The vast majority will not because their development plan timelines are different. It is the ones whose development plan reviews are coming in quickly. I am not saying this is right or wrong but the Department told us during our session the other day is that the material alterations should proceed as planned and the federation's concern does not arise. The fact that the CIF raised this concern is really important. I suggest to the Chair that the committee writes to the officials and ask them to give us a written response on that. I make my suggestion because this is a significant matter and I think most of us would be concerned by that.
I have a question for Ms Scully, which I did not get to in the first round of questions. The 2023 CCMA workforce study showed a 541 planning staff deficit. We were told at the time, and during our discussions on the Planning and Development Act, that that was to deal with the demands on our planning authorities at that point in time, and that the additional demands of the Act would require a further workforce review. Obviously the CCMA's has its position, which I respect, but I suppose Ms Scully can speak for the individual planners rather than the corporate entities of the local authorities. Is there a concern among planners about the impact of this legislation and the wider commencement of the Planning and Development Act in terms of workload and capacity to deliver? I mean, in particular, the very positive elements, few and all as they were, in terms of the Act regarding being plan-led, the plan making and then the reviews. Do individual planners and members of Ms Scully's organisation have concerns about the resourcing capacity to deliver on the types of things that are in this Bill and that they will have to implement this year and next year in terms of these plan-led approaches?
Ms Deirdre Scully:
I thank the Deputy for his questions. As I pointed out in my earlier summation, the Bill gives clarity as regards the ability to move. The Deputy is right that not all development plans start at the same time, not all of them are going to be affected and not all of them will require 30 months. I am sure Mr. Conneally can give a lot more detailed answer on all that. It does give clarity and allows time and resources to be given to a study of what sites are appropriate to bring forward at this time, and which ones have the infrastructure, capacity and transport to be brought forward for housing zoning and to be delivered.
We all know that, within the planning system, there are not as many experienced planners working in local government and within the other sectors. The same applies to the private sector where all sections are struggling to recruit the amount of people who are needed. In allowing that opportunity to spread the work and get on with delivering what needs to be done under section 28, to get through that process and have the research done, that will be of benefit in the preparation of development plans. The examination of capacity, infrastructure, resources and environmental impact will feed into the work that is needed and is part of the baseline for a development plan review anyway. What is in this amendment will help and allow that.
What is critical, and I repeat, is the updating of the guidelines as they will also inform that so that local authority staff and those making submissions on development plans in the private sector, and those governing that process in the OPR and the commission, will know what the Government position is as regards a whole range of things under the guidelines, which need to be updated, both in the process itself, with writing development plans and what goes into them, but also the issues like the childcare guidelines and a whole range of others, for example, renewable energy. All of these are absolutely critical in writing the next wave of development plans. It will be of great benefit to those working in the system if as many of those can be published and in place before the vast majority of development plans reach draft stage so that they can be incorporated.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Conneally, in terms of the number of local authorities that may need to avail of the provision of up to 30 months, do we have any visibility on the number or which ones they are?
Mr. Liam Conneally:
Yes. I think that nearly all of the local authorities will avail of it in one shape or another. It is necessary from that perspective alone. I think there are at least seven at the moment that are up to or close to the wire in terms of the review period.
It is immediate for them. The general scheme is really needed from that perspective.
On the subject of resourcing, it is difficult to discombobulate planning resources from other resources in the local government system. Individual local authorities all have their strategic workforce plans. We set out our staffing requirements across the sector, both individually and collectively, so the Department is involved in that conversation. This is a continuous conversation with the Department of housing in terms of the needs. We will be adjusting those needs as more and more legislation and requirements come on us. To say this is a fluid situation is probably an understatement. The need is constant.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I accept that. However, I make the point that, in 2023, the Department were told we need an extra 541 planners. Here we are in 2026 and we are 300 shy of that. Mr. Conneally and his team's workload are increasing. That is not a criticism of him, but it is a reflection of the fact that there is a lag between when the local authorities notify the Department and Government of what is needed and what they get.
Mr. Liam Conneally:
That is a good point and is an issue that irks us, local government and, I am sure, the Department of housing. However, we have to deal with reality. We are not producing the number of graduates in this profession to sustain us all in terms of private sector, consultants, the semi-State sector, An Coimisiún Pleanála, the Office of the Planning Regulator and the 31 local authorities. We have a reality there and we are doing things we never did before in terms of trying to repurpose, upskill and get into those third level organisations to make the planning profession an attractive option for graduates. There is a lot of work happening and I thank the Office of the Planning Regulator, the Local Government Management Agency and the Department for that, but it is a constant push.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for coming before the committee and their opening statements. I am a substitute on this committee, so I float in and out every few weeks. I sort of pick it up as I go along. I was here the other day; we have had a lot of housing meetings. This document I have here was in front of us. It is the GAA's report entitled No One Shouted Stop -Until Now. It is a really enlightening production . When one gets into it, we see that the eastern seaboard has a total population of 4.4 million who are in a particular cohort, specifically north to south on the eastern seaboard, which is 62% of the population. That is very relevant to where I am going to go with my questioning.
It was Mr. Conneally who identified this in his opening remarks, and I thank him for it. It relates to the definition of key towns - Senator Casey leaned into this already - as being those having a population of 10,000. I come from Galway, I am west of the Shannon, and the lads sometimes have a little bit of a laugh about this because I will always flag for west of the Shannon. When I go west of the Shannon, I have only one town in my entire constituency that is over 10,000, which is Tuam. I live in Portumna on the banks of the Shannon. I am an hour and ten minutes' drive to Tuam from Portumna. There is no town in between. It is very relevant when we talk about rural decline, rural infrastructure, rural balance and one-off. I want to hear a little bit more of what Mr. Conneally started with about what needs to be addressed within the legislation to ensure we protect against rural decline and we ensure there is key infrastructure put in place by our local authorities so our schools and our shops have the viability and we do not become the playground for the east, because that is what will happen at the rate we are going. I have seen it.
I will get on to Mr. Flynn in a minute because when we talk about environmental elements, we see what the snail habitats did. I am not mentioning anything, but we know what the snail habitats did inside of the city. I know what happened above in Derrybrien, so there is a lot going on that has come against Galway from a judicial point of view in the last number of years. It has absolutely tied the two hands behind our back. Will Mr. Conneally talk to me about the 10,000 population and what he would suggest?
Mr. Liam Conneally:
I thank the Senator for the questions. My opening remarks made reference to the fact that we acknowledge the efforts here in terms of identifying a definition of a key town. I am sure as towns grow, more and more towns will be added to that key towns list. From a more rural local authority perspective, it is important that the key towns already identified in the regional, spatial and economic strategies remain as key towns. The heads of the Bill actually provide for that and that is a welcome addition. I deliberately pointed out the purpose of a key town from a rural county perspective and the economically active settlement that those key towns are in terms of employment locations, educational centres, centres of public administration and retail locations for those rural counties. It is important they remain. I take the question for what it is.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms Scully for her opening remarks and for the response she gave to Deputy Ó Broin when she referenced childcare. Far too often we have developments going on where buildings are built but we do not, in actual fact, have enough of the key infrastructure that is required to ensure the likes of childcare or public amenities. That is why the GAA was in at the committee. We are building in key areas, and we are not putting in place the supports and the structures for that. Does Ms Scully want to elaborate on childcare and the fact that we have 40,000 children in this State who are struggling to find childcare, if that is okay?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We are straying away.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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I will go on to Mr. Flynn. I am not questioning the right to challenge planning, but I am questioning whether the current legislation of JRs and the current system incentivise delays. If we are going from ten, to 20 to 140, and we see what has happened in a Galway context, will the new legislation and the heads of this Bill not address the incentivising factor that has crept in? It is not a narrative; it is a fact.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
Regarding incentivisation and how it relates to delay, that narrative ignores the more recent developments of the Planning and Environment Court. I can say with confidence that if a key infrastructural development is challenged by somebody today, be it in Galway or elsewhere -I have great time for Galway, I studied there and have great affection for it and understand the problems there- that challenge would be admitted to the list and would probably be given a hearing date for three months' time and judgement would probably be delivered within four months. The narrative largely refers to two- or three-year delays in relation to those matters and ignores the changes that have occurred within the system. I do not think there really is an incentive to delay. If residents think they are going to delay a development by issuing judicial review, which in my experience is not what they are about and in most cases they will have genuine concerns and may think the development raises issues of traffic pressures or so on and so forth, I do not think the delay narrative stands up anymore. It could be reduced even further if there were additional resources granted in respect of the courts.
I understand the frustrations people have around key infrastructural development, but we have legislation which this Oireachtas has put in place relating to environmental protection and environmental impact assessments and how you have to go through the assessment process. That is there on the Statute Book. If the Oireachtas feels it is unbalanced or that it goes too far, it is up to the Oireachtas to look and change that if it so wants.
Some points were made in the infrastructure report. I refer the Senator back to the Bar Council's submission on costs, which deals with this and responds to the infrastructure report. We are not unsympathetic to some of the propositions in relation to that. Perhaps there are areas of substantive law that could be clarified and there are overlapping procedures that could be improved. The statutory framework is the statutory framework that is put in place by the Oireachtas. In large measure, it also implements obligations under EU law. The rules are set by the Oireachtas. People in judicial reviews seek to apply those rules and ask if they have been applied. The judges decide that and I can assure the committee that they do not decide it on a technical basis. In some sense, the substantive law is technical but mere technicalities are not going to cut it any more. I do not want to go back to our submission but this all set out and teased out in some clarity in it.
In recent years, the courts have developed what is known as a doctrine of harmless error. We refer to the fact that there are at least 80 cases where the courts have referred to this. I can give numerous examples although I will not name any cases. There are many cases I can point the committee in the direction of where somebody has sought a judicial review on the basis that there is some minor, technical point, and the court has said it is a harmless error and has not permitted a judicial review in relation to it.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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That is really refreshing to hear, but unfortunately it has not been my experience in Galway to date. That is all I am saying. I am talking about a development in the city, nothing to do with the county. Seven years it took us to get through it and, to this date, it is housing, it is development. We have people needing student accommodation. This is what the whole conversation is about today: delivering housing.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
I do not disagree with the Senator about the primacy and importance of delivering housing. I do think that planning legislation should just be about housing. There are other considerations that we have to take into account when we are looking at the overall planning legislation. I am not saying that housing is not exceptionally important, and arguably one of the most important things. Planning legislation has to be broader than just purely housing. I think that is not an unreasonable proposition to canvass with the committee. We have to get sustainable, balanced communities as well.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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That was my opening précis, where I started with the GAA. That was exactly where I came from. Unfortunately, my experience is that it is not that the builders do not want to deliver or the local authorities grant planning. It is actually that there is a process that is being exploited to slow down the process.
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Are we going to have problems or a difficulty, say with the different rules that are there on standing under the 2000 Act, in retrospectively applying the provisions of the 2024 Act to the 2000 Act? Are we also potentially exposing decisions of the 2000 Act by opening them up the Part 9 of the 2024 Act?
Mr. Alan Doyle:
I think you are, by changing the rules in the middle of the process. People may have made a submission, say in the name of a residents' association that might not have a constitution, might not be a company and might not meet the technical rules under Part 9 for sufficient interest. They may have launched into the process thinking they are going to be governed by the existing section 50 of the 2000 Act and then they will find that they are now going to be subject to Part 9. They will say that if they had known that at the start, they would have formed a constitution. A member might say that if they had known that, they would have put in an individual submission. People like that may get caught out if you change the rules. They may be able to bring a challenge.
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Is that potentially opening us up to an entirely different can of worms in the form of a load of satellite litigation coming from these changes?
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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So this Bill could quite conceivably do the complete opposite of what it intends to do in respect of this.
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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There is a lot of talk about the prevalence of judicial review. If I go back to the apartment guidelines changes, my understanding is that Government conceded an aspect of that in November. It rushed it through the Oireachtas first of all and did not do a strategic environmental assessment. I am not a lawyer but I understand you are required to do that by law, and it did not do that, so therefore one aspect of that judicial review was upheld. I understand it should have done that.
Mr. Alan Doyle:
Yes, I understand that question has been referred to the European Court of Justice. That shows it is a significant issue, whether it is right or wrong. Judicial review is there to ensure that the rules are followed. If one tries to rush things through, that is when mistakes tend to be made. It is one of the reasons not to rush it, not to change or jump horses halfway through the race, as is proposed here, and just let the process work itself out properly.
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Does anyone else want to come in on that?
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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My understanding was that it conceded that.
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Okay, but at the same time, it is scrapping them and coming up with new apartment design guidelines.
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Just to move on from that, in respect of the additional complexity with this piece of legislation, is there a risk that it could nullify the additional staffing resources the CCMA has got in the last years given the deficit that existed in the number of planners in the system? That is for Mr. Conneally.
Mr. Liam Conneally:
No. I do not think that would be the case. On the whole JR piece, though, I do think there is an ongoing conversation between the Department of housing and the Office of the Attorney General. There are issues around our understanding where litigation has commenced under the 2000 Act and that it continues to its finality in that. There needs to be clarity around the sufficient interest in head 12. Head 11 provides clarity on the eight weeks after the Bill's enactment and the break between the two. We need legal certainty.
The Department is working on that.
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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My last question is in relation to head 12. Has there been any clarity or has there been any discussion on that definition? The definition of "sufficient interest" in the 2024 is controversial. Has there been any clarity as to how that might be amended?
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Yes.
Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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What does that mean?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
I presume it is still being appraised and assessed in relation to it. A general concern I would have is that, in terms of the substantive content of the heads, it is a little difficult to fully discern exactly how this is going to work in practice. There are a few little gaps, to say the least, in relation to it. That is somewhat concerning because it is difficult territory generally.
By the way, I am not saying that this is completely illegal or unlawful. I am just saying that it seems that it is very difficult territory where the two schemes interact. It seems to be the territory that, in the past and for reasons my friend, Mr. Doyle, has already given, you can see scenarios where it could give rise to litigation. I do not know will you ever be able to eliminate that but the best of luck to whoever is involved in trying to draft those proceedings. It is not something that I would be putting my hand up for.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I have a couple of comments before I call the next speaker. I came to the view on Tuesday, in discussing it with the Department and trying to get my head around this, that the main crux is the judicial review and that the Bill was not going to make any difference to the number of judicial reviews that were going to be taken. I am sticking with that view after what I have heard today. This is not going to reduce that number. I asked the Department whether it was going to reduce the number of judicial reviews, which is what we want to ultimately get more houses built or stop developments being delayed. The same opinion seems to be present in what I have heard today. There may even be a possibility of it causing more problems.
Mr. Flynn mentioned the need for two or three more judges to deal with the cases that are there or are going to be taken. He has given the details of how, given what is in this proposed legislation, everyone is still going to be eligible to take a judicial review anyway. Ultimately, any judicial review relates to legislation that is made here in these Houses. What legislation needs to be changed to reduce the number of judicial reviews taken while still adhering to the Aarhus Convention?
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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Would the witness like to come over here?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
There are two aspects to it. Judicial review arises from poor decision-making and poor decision-making processes and we have to focus on improving the decision-making processes to get quality decisions. If they are quality decisions, you will not have judicial reviews because the decisions will be legally watertight.
The point about resources is a bit of a no-brainer. For a relatively small amount of expenditure, you could radically speed up decision-making processes. I have already given the committee the instances. You could get the new timelines for critical infrastructure and major infrastructure projects down even further and ensure that there was much greater capacity to deal with the projects. For a relatively small expenditure, I would have thought that was something well worth looking at.
In looking at the legislation, one of the reasons we put in our initial submission was the need to measure twice and cut once. What happens here a lot is there seems to be a push to get legislation amended without scrutinising it in detail, appraising it and seeing where it might lead us, and without asking whether this constant churning and changing of legislation is ultimately positive. You could ask whether the existing system is good enough and whether this is an issue of applying more resources to it. When I talk about resources, I mean resources at every step of the process - before the commission, at the judicial level and further down the levels in terms of decision-making, including organisations such as Uisce Éireann and, when it is making discharge licences and so on, the EPA - to raise capacity, which is part of the problem. It is also part of the problem in that, if you have additional capacity, you will get better decision-making because people will not be under pressure. That is one of the difficulties. We may not have the capacity within the systems, not only in the planning area, but in other areas such as the environment, to allow people to consider their decision-making. When people have to make decisions under pressure due to a lack of capacity, that is when you get mistakes made. It is pressurised decision-making.
There are other things we could suggest, if the Cathaoirleach wants. One thing that I have always thought should have been looked at - it was a missed opportunity in the 2024 Act - is the possibility of draft decisions in the planning area. As my friends here and other people may know, the EPA issues a draft decision before it issues a licence. Its draft tells people what it is thinking of doing when it gives a licence, that is, a development consent. It puts it out there and invites submissions, and everybody goes and makes their submissions. There is possibly an argument to look at that in the planning arena and say of a draft planning decision that this is what we are going to say in relation to those matters, and if people have any submissions or observations to make on it, they should make them. The advantage of this is that people can then point out the mistakes. If they do not point out the mistakes, you take the view that maybe you should preclude or restrict them from how they challenge the decision or, if they are going to judicially review it at a later stage, ask them to justify why they did not point that out when it was at a draft stage. That is something that could be looked at. There are other things that could be looked at. Mr. Doyle may have other ideas about them.
Mr. Alan Doyle:
In general, if you can shorten legislation, you will provide fewer points where it can be challenged but that involves going back to the drawing board and starting from scratch.
One possibly counter-intuitive approach - they talk about the stages of grief and acceptance - relates to how the timeline for judicial review is very tight at eight weeks. If you lengthened it back to the six months that it originally was, I wonder whether you would find that people might say after six months that they will live with it. Now, you would have to ask a psychologist about that because I would not know. It just occurs to me, not in terms of restricting the number of judicial reviews but in speeding up the ones that come into the courts. As to giving An Coimisiún Pleanála more resources to deal with them, one of the major delays after matters get into the courts is that it does not have the capacity to put in the opposition papers to everything in the shortest time.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Doyle mentioned resources for An Coimisiún Pleanála. Even at home in my own local county, it is a struggle to even get planners because the commission took a lot of planners out of the local authority system.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The planning knowledge, as it was, would be there.
Mr. Liam Conneally:
An Coimisiún Pleanála has definitely increased in terms of its intake of planners.
We welcome that because it is going to lead to faster decision-making at appeal stage.
There is an element of subjectivity to what is a good or bad decision. It depends on which side of the decision you are on. Those who are making those decisions are doing so with the information and policy environment that they have at a particular time. I would hate to think that any aspersions would be cast on the competency or quality of the decision-makers in the planning system in Ireland because we have one of the best planning systems in the world.
The tightening of the JR piece is important. The general scheme tries to do that in a positive way. It will bring certainty to the JR space, and certainty builds confidence. We know that confidence enables delivery. Those are key things when you are trying to deliver significant quantums of housing for our society. The sooner we get to a conclusion and provide a good JR process, the better. I commend the Department of housing on its efforts in this space. We await consultation with the Attorney General on this topic. He will obviously have advice for the Department on this matter.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We will take a break from the JRs for a moment, if we can.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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For a moment.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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For a moment only because I will come back to the issue. I will ask questions of the witnesses in the front row, namely, Ms Scully, Mr. Conneally and Ms Uí Fhátharta. I will ask about the broader planning sense, section 28 and the variations that are taking place across the country. A debate has emerged in many local authorities about the trade-off between zoning additional land and increasing the density of existing zoned land. The spirit of what the Minister was endeavouring to do was to create additional zoned land. That was what was needed in the vast majority of cases. However, there is, apparently, push-back from the planning side of some local authorities to the effect that additional densities would achieve the same thing. Will the witnesses comment briefly on that? I do want to go back to the JRs.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What would be the breakdown, in Mr. Conneally's mind? I know that is a hard question.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I agree, but in terms of the country as a whole, we are not going to achieve targets by having a higher increase in density without more zoning.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Perhaps Ms Scully could reply from a planning point of view. Some of this is coming from the planners. They get a lot of stick at times and I welcome Ms Scully's statements and positive approach to the Bill. Density versus additional zoning has cropped up as an issue.
Ms Deirdre Scully:
I agree with Mr. Conneally. What is important is that there is no rule that can apply everywhere. Every town is different. Every county is different. There is an environmental context to some of the decisions about which land goes forward and what is the best solution for particular towns based on the services they have, their capacity, what local employment is like and the level of demand. There is also the issue of looking at who owns the land and their interest in moving it forward. Are there willing participants who will bring forward housing land, based on the existing zoned land? How is that balanced? In some places, the quickest win will be pushing up the densities on the existing service. That will give you results in the short term while you are sorting out the other stuff and getting services.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I accept all that. I get that it is a matter of balance. The spirit of where it came from was the intention to provide additional land. That was clear from the Minister and the Government. Unfortunately, the interpretation or uptake from some local authorities has been different. That is regrettable.
I will come back to JRs and Mr. Flynn, if I may. I think we can all agree about additional resources. It seems obvious to me. Why not increase the number of judges who are dealing with JRs to get them through faster, rather than overly restricting people's ability to take a JR? I get that there is a trade-off. When we consider the common good versus someone's legal rights, there has been a plethora of cases where it could be argued clearly that the common good has not been served by JRs. We must look at this issue in the round and the Bill does that.
I take issue with Mr. Flynn's statement, and I do not want to misquote him, that the majority of JRs happen because of poor decisions. I fundamentally disagree. The majority of JRs happen because people do not like the decision, as opposed to there being a poor or flawed decision. I do not think the majority of people are so concerned about errors in law, necessarily. I think they are concerned about whether they like a decision that has issued. How many JRs in a residential context succeed? Would we have any indication of that?
Mr. Tom Flynn:
I will answer the Deputy's other points first. I do not know if we have figures for that. In relation to the common good, I understand where that perspective comes from. However, I will give the Deputy another view. I hope everybody on the committee understands that judicial review is not a merits-based appeal. If you go before a court and say, "I want you to judicially review a planning decision because I do not like it", you are going to get nowhere.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We know that.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Can I-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----tease that out? You have to demonstrate that at the end to succeed but you do not have to demonstrate that to take a case.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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To take the case-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is the same as saying you have to demonstrate a flaw.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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You have to show an arguable case.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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You can take a case and delay something for two years-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----and ultimately not have demonstrated that there was a flaw in the decision.
Mr. Tom Flynn:
The problem is that we have to allow people to take cases. What the Deputy is suggesting is the removal of the leave stage, which for reasons I have already outlined arguably does not address the potential for mischief that he is highlighting. The point is that we must have a situation where people are allowed to make their case. I do not agree that a two-year timeline is necessarily a meaningful timeline, certainly in relation to large-scale infrastructural developments. Cases are decided much more quickly in such cases. Ultimately, the court will make the evaluation as to whether you have established a legal or procedural error such as to warrant relief in respect of the matter. The argument I would make to the Deputy is that there is a common good in ensuring that the law of the land is adhered to. There is a common good in establishing that. To counterbalance that, and to put it the other way, it is not in the common interest that decisions that are unlawful, and are found to be unlawful, are allowed to proceed. If we were to get into that space, I think that most of us and most of the committee members would see the potential for difficulties to arise. The common good does come into it in that regard. However, I understand that people can find it frustrating where projects they would see as potentially for the social good are concerned. We could talk of things like infrastructural developments. However, we have a legal framework that is set by the Oireachtas. It sets out how decisions are made. There is a common good in ensuring that is adhered to.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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My question-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will come in again briefly, if I may. I accept there is a common good in ensuring we have a robust legal system. What percentage of cases see a successful outcome to a judicial review?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr. O'Connell want to come in?
Mr. Conor O'Connell:
May I make a comment on densities, please? I emphasise that we are very much in favour of the provisions for the extension of the development plan but are highlighting an issue that may arise.
I would defer to Mr. Leonard or Mr. Rush on the densities. Deputy McGrath has raised a really important point.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We might add a few minutes on to the end of the meeting because we are having a good discussion here and it is important to tease it out.
Mr. James Leonard:
We would have a fundamental concern about the suggestion that density could be an early win. Excessive densities are an obstacle to delivery. That is undoubted and it is proven in the number of schemes that have not been implemented, particularly with apartment schemes. The State will acknowledge this by stepping into the breach with State invention under croí cónaithe and other schemes to bridge that viability gap but also in terms of the pump grinding of the Land Development Agency, the approved housing bodies, and the local authorities to assist in the delivery of apartments in particular. We just want to come back strongly on this suggestion that increasing density could in some way assist in the delivery of additional housing. Land is our raw material and it is the lack of zoned and serviced or serviceable land that is the biggest obstacle to bringing forward housing delivery. The crisis is now, as we all know.
Going back to Deputy Ó Broin's point about the variations, quite a few of the variations within the greater Dublin area have progressed to a point where they have gone out to public consultation - we have seen them - and Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR, has commented on them. We are not opposed to the extension in terms of the current county development plans but it just makes it all the more critical that the variations are substantial, expansive and deal with the issue at hand and bring forward additional supply of zoned land.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We are going to move it on. I am conscious of staff members here and the time of the evening it is.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have a very quick observation. When Senator Casey and I were first elected to the Dáil in 2016 and were in this committee, judicial reviews of residential developments were virtually unheard of. I think it is important to remind ourselves of what changed, which may address the Chair's question about how we fix this. Ultimately there is a relationship with respect to housing because housing judicial reviews have a very different history from strategic infrastructure. Typically my understanding is that strategic infrastructure tends to have more environmental challenges and housing, particularly after 2018, had far more material contravention with development plan challenges. They are very different. What happened was two changes. The first was strategic housing development, but actually what really saw a dramatic increase in the number of judicial reviews of residential developments was two sets of section 28 ministerial guidelines by Eoghan Murphy on design standards and building heights. Regardless of whether one agrees with those changes, the reality was that as a consequence of those changes we had two sets of planning rules: we had our city and county development plans, particularly in Dublin with our city development plans, and we had the section 28 guidelines. Many developers, in good faith, put in developments using the ministerial guidelines because they understood they were told that they were superior under law. Actually what happened was that people started to challenge them. It started with Dublin City Council with St. Anne's Park and then others have followed. Not only was there a dramatic increase in challenges but my understanding is the majority of those material contravention challenges were won and the planning decision of the board was struck down. The board over a period of time repeatedly made a set of decisions that were repeatedly struck down by the courts.
The former Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to be fair to him and it is very rare I give that man a compliment in public, then relented under pressure from the Opposition. First of all he significantly amended Eoghan Murphy's design standard section 28 guidelines. He also returned to a two-stage process with some improvements on the large-scale residential development, which has worked very well. That saw a dramatic drop in the number of judicial reviews of higher density residential developments. This tells us that if we get planning laws right and if we remove the inconsistencies between what we empower local authorities to do and what the Minister does, there are not the grounds for taking judicial reviews because good quality decisions are made. I agree with Mr. Conneally that the overwhelming majority of decisions in our planning system are good. This is why they are not even appealed to the board, let alone challenged. It is, however, a matter of public record confirmed by the OPR that there was a period of time where certain individuals, and one has been convicted, repeatedly made bad decisions that were subsequently deemed illegal in the courts. We need to be honest about that.
For me the first thing is to let us avoid making the mistakes of the past. I was not involved in the legal challenge of the new apartment design standards but if anybody had asked me the day before the Minister surprised us all by publishing them what was going to happen, I would have said what I am about to say now. Just as Eoghan Murphy's section 28 design standard guidelines led to a proliferation of legal challenges, that was going to happen with the Minister, Deputy James Browne. In some senses if the people who have taken that legal challenge lose it will dramatically reduce the scope for legal challenges on individual applications. If ministerial guidelines create significant variations between our existing development plans, and ministerial roles create those divergences, they invite litigation. That is not me saying the legal case is right or wrong or whatever. I do not understand why one would take that risk. The development sector had an incredibly difficult time from 2018, 2019 and 2020 because they took rules they believed were lawful and they legitimately put in planning applications under those rules. They were approved by the board, legally challenged and struck down. This is the planning legislation bit: our committee has to make sure through scrutiny that as much planning legislation as possible is clear and concise and that there is a single set of rules everybody understands and can abide by. It concerns me when we start changing the rules of the game again. There are some elements of this Bill, more so on the judicial review side, that do that.
The other thing I wish to make a comment on is the lands and densities. It is important to remember that many of the decisions taken by local authorities have to be compliant with the national development plan. If they are not, under law passed by a previous Government the Office of the Planning Regulator, which does not willingly decide, is mandated to enforce Government policies for the national planning framework. It is all very well for Government backbenchers to criticise individual actions of the planning regulator, but that individual is fulfilling his statutory obligation. That is not to comment on the merits of any decision-----
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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Let us not forget he wrote it.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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He did and I voted against it and the Senator voted for it. Let us remember the record-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We might keep from-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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This is a really important point.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I understand but-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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When we are having conversations about whether it is more lower or mid-density land, which is what is being discussed, or increased density of existing zoned land, let us remember there is a national planning framework that places very specific restrictions on our local authorities. I think some of the local authorities could be much quicker in moving the material alteration process forward but they have to comply with the national planning framework, NPF. If people do not like what the local authorities do, they should go and change the damn NPF and not be giving the local authorities a hard time for complying with it. I am only saying that because we have conversations in here sometimes where we scapegoat organisations or individuals for stuff that was approved by the Oireachtas, including by members of this committee, although very often some of us did not vote for it. If we get that stuff right, the judicial reviews will reduce on housing and then residential supply will hopefully increase. My last point-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Deputy-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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No, again this is important. I accept that increasing densities is a challenge, given viability. That is not an argument against increasing densities; it is an argument for putting in place the policy supports that allow us to tackle that. We cannot go back into urban sprawl. When we are doing this increased housing supply, I am a big advocate of and share the view that we cannot go back to urban sprawl. We need to be mindful of that. I put it to Mr. O'Connell that this is not an argument against the position of the Construction Industry Federation, CIF, because I know he is not arguing for that, but this is why I am much closer to the local authorities because if we go back to those bad days, the social economic and environmental consequences are enormous. I know that the CIF is not arguing for that but I just wanted to put that on the record.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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Can I very briefly say-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I want to move on because I am conscious that staff are meant to be finished at 6 p.m. and I want to let people go. We have gone over time as I stretched it a little bit now. I will give the Senator a minute.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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This is in relation to Mr. Flynn. Today we are talking about the judicial review process. I fully understand. If An Bord Pleanála, or the coimisiún, or whatever you want to call it, had been timebound in making decisions for years we would not have the problem we are now in. If we could do something with the courts, I would love to do it but today we are talking about judicial reviews and that is what I was referring to in relation to densities, and Deputy Ó Broin has raised it. I have a major concern. I have seen a few core strategies published now where we have seen the accommodation of almost 9,000 additional units. That is 9,000 units being accommodated on existing zoned land.
That includes the 50% headroom. To achieve that, we have seen densities double, increasing by 100%. Not alone is it changing the densities, it is changing the communities that these people are living in. Before we even go to the viability, there is no point building densities if there is no one at the end of it to buy it or to live in it. It has to be balanced.
I have a concern that some local authorities are using densities to present a core strategy that does not need additional zoned land and, therefore, they are kicking the hard decision down the road. They are waiting for the review of their development plans to do the heavy lifting in relation to zoned land. That is unacceptable. We have to get the balance of densities right. We have to do the heavy lifting in relation to zoned land now, not in the development plan review, which is maybe two years away. This could be done within a year and it should be done now. I have serious reservations in relation to that.
In relation to JRs taken by developers, I looked at the ones in Wicklow. They were taken by developers on technicalities. It goes back to the national planning framework, NPF, and putting it on a legislative footing. They had nothing to do with the design with the houses, the open spaces, the crèches or anything like that. One of the proposed developments exceeded the core strategy and its population target. A second proposed development was on phase 2 lands and there were additional phase 1 lands available within the municipal district, which does not even have planning permission applied for on it. In a third case, 600 houses were refused in Arklow because somebody else had got planning permission for 400 houses two and half years earlier and done absolutely nothing about it. These cases were appealed on technical grounds and they were all overturned. They are all JRs that developers took, but they were taken on technical grounds, not on planning. That is what the NPF has done. It has legislated for absolutely everything down to the finite thing.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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You should have voted against it.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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We did not vote for it. The Government implemented it.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I will repeat what I said earlier. I thank everybody for attending. There was short notice given for this meeting and everyone came here late on a Thursday. If the witnesses have any further views or opinions they want to send in, I ask them to send them in to the secretariat straight away. I thank the staff. I have held them over time by a few minutes. I apologise, but we were having a good, detailed discussion, which was extremely important. That concludes our consideration of the matter today. The committee now stands adjourned until Tuesday, 27 January 2026, when the committee will meet in public session.