Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

At the weekend the Minister, Deputy Leo Varadkar, rightly said that much more housing is needed in the greater Dublin region and his comments included a caveat. He said: "The planning system will also be made less restrictive."

A major programme of social housing in Dublin and throughout the country is urgently needed but the deplorable record of the Celtic tiger era is that the planning system was anything but restrictive. Disasters such as the pyrite infestation, Priory Hall and the shoebox apartment approach happened because the flotilla of developers, out-of-control banks and quiescent Fianna Fáil-led Governments permitted planning controls and building regulations to be loose or non-existent, with up to 100,000 commercial housing units being spent built every year. I warmly commend Deputy Catherine Murphy for drafting this Bill. It is another thoughtful and timely Bill that she brings before the Oireachtas.

I commend her for the proposal, in part 2, for a planning compliance register. It would be a huge step forward in protecting citizens when making the largest purchase of their lives. Hundreds and thousands of citizens, who bought during the Celtic tiger era, are left with huge liabilities of €200,000 or €300,000 above the current value of their homes. Two or three years ago, my colleague in Dublin North, Deputy Sean Ryan introduced a simple Bill on behalf of the Labour Party, which I strongly supported at the time. The Bill included a provision to refuse further planning permission to builders or developers who had previously left unfinished estates or estates with outstanding problems. That was the way to go and the approach is necessary to invigilate building and development. In my student days, like many Members, I worked on those sites; therefore, I can testify to what Deputy Mick Wallace tells us.

As a councillor, I regarded the adoption of the city and county development plans and local area plans as one of the key functions of local government. I made a lengthy submission on behalf of constituents on the North Fringe, Baldoyle, Stapolin and south Portmarnock local area plans. Unfortunately, these plans are often disregarded by developers. Our officials had just finished the North Fringe plan in Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council when developers came along with a different proposal for areas that were supposed to be developed for housing and commercial development. That is why I welcome Part 3 of the Bill, which legislates that all permissions shall comply with the area and local plans. Egregious attempts were made over recent years to make young householders pay development contributions to finish key and necessary infrastructure in housing and apartment developments. Part 4 is also welcome in providing a centralised national schedule of agreed development contributions. Part 5 addresses the long-standing problem of the extension of planning permissions. We have seen a plethora of extensions before Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council and they should be open to the same invigilation as they were originally.

Part 6 addresses an important lacuna in the law in respect of bonds connected with developments. I welcome the amendment to section 180A of the 2000 Act as outlined by Deputy Catherine Murphy in Part 10. It will address something that has been, regrettably, a feature of developments in recent years whereby the bond expired before the local authority in question could redeem it. Many local authorities have suffered grave losses.

I also agree with Deputy Catherine Murphy's proposals in Part 7, which give residents in an estate an active role in the initiation of the estate being taken in charge. In Dublin Bay North, estates such as Clarehall went through seven or eight years trying to get the city and council authorities and developers to finally take estates in charge. Now I am grappling with that on behalf of constituents in the North Fringe, Belmayne, Clongriffin and The Coast. It is the same old story. I commend the Deputy for the Bill which is part of a series of thoughtful and useful legislative proposals from her.

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