Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I understand where the Deputy is coming from and I want to reassure her that this is not about reducing standards. We already have minimum standards in this country and we comply with EU requirements. This is about ensuring we have development that is sustainable and affordable and that the construction of housing from the concept to design to planning to construction is affordable. Otherwise, we will price ourselves out of the market. I recognise that we need good quality development plans that are sustainable and the Deputy is right to raise this issue in the House.

She asked what unreasonable and excessive requirements we were referring to. One area that has been highlighted to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council was the inclusion of the passive housing standard as a minimum energy performance requirement. I have no issue with housing construction standards being as high and efficient as possible and believe they should be encouraged, but we need to careful that we are not overly prescriptive or restrictive in our county and city development plans. It is important that issues such as the location of apartments are more appropriately considered in the individual planning application. There is nothing stopping local authorities from applying conditions rather than having overall restrictive or prescriptive conditions in a county or city development plan. In other words, one has belts and braces when one does not need them because they will add to cost and restrict housing output, which is not something any of us wants to see.

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