Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 6, to delete lines 10 to 35, and in page 7, to delete lines 1 to 22.

This amendment is related to measures that the Government seems to feel will speed up the planning process. To start I will quote some comments from Gavin Daly of the geography department in National University of Ireland, Maynooth, who does not see much merit in what the Government is trying to do:

The apparent rationale for this fast-tracked planning consent system is that: "with almost all planning approvals of larger housing developments for 100 new homes or more being appealed to An Bord Pleanála, this has meant that there is in effect a two-stage planning application process which can take 18 to 24 months to secure ultimate approval to go on site and start to build." (Pg 62). Of course, no evidence is presented to support this assertion. Indeed, An Bord Pleanála’s own annual report, published earlier this month, states that: "The number of appeal cases for housing developments received over the past two years has remained low, 35 cases of 30+ units in 2014 versus the peak of 568 in 2007. While the number of 30+ housing appeals received has increased slightly (60 to the end of 2015), the number of such cases remains low." (Pg 35). All of these appeals, according to An Bord Pleanála, have been disposed of within the statutory compliance time of eighteen weeks. Furthermore, there is also no evidence whatsoever that the strategic infrastructure process actually speeds-up the planning system, with just half of such applications over the past ten years decided upon within eighteen weeks and, only then, after lengthy pre-application consultations.

The reality is that, despite the assiduous commitment by influential commentators over the past few years to successfully paint a picture of planning as the chief villain and bugbear in impeding housing supply, permission is currently in place for 27,000 shovel ready homes in Dublin alone. According to the strategy, just 4,809 or 18% of these potential units are currently under active construction i.e. 82% of potential homes with planning permission are not commenced at all. The planning system is clearly not the impediment here.

In 2015 there were 985 residential housing appeals to An Bord Pleanála with 75% of determinations confirming, with or without variation, the decision made by the local authority. In 2015 also 82% of all priority appeals made to An Bord Pleanála were disposed of within their targeted timeline of 18 weeks. These statistics would suggest that permitting applications for large housing developments to be made directly to An Bord Pleanála will not achieve the goal of reducing the timeframes in which planning permissions can be achieved. We will be left with a less positive, less efficient planning process.

I have been speaking to planners in Dublin city whom I have worked with about what the Government is doing. These are people with a lot of experience in this area, who know what they are talking about, who have contributed in a very good way to the development of our city. I do not know whether the Minister has consulted with these people but they do not think this is the way to go. I am not sure where the Minister is getting the advice that has led him to assume this is the way forward. I listened to the Minister on Committee Stage making a case that there will be a facility for engagement with planners in the pre-application process but there will be no obligation whatever for people to take on board what transpires from these. It will not be statutory. The Minister is watering down the way in which we do planning in Ireland. This is not a good way to go. We are doing it for developments greater than 100 units. If the Minister looks at what has happened in Ireland in the past 30 years the places where it was found things had not been done as well as they should have been done were more often than not the large rather than the small developments.

I am concerned about who is being facilitated, its impact on the delivery of housing and I suspect the large players who have more clout than many others are not necessarily the people who will save us and deliver us from the housing crisis. I realise the Minister feels that those who will deliver more units per development will get us there more quickly but it is not a philosophy I agree with. I do not think the likes of Hines and Kennedy Wilson are our saviours. I struggle to understand why the Government has not had more of an appetite for actively engaging small builders and organising for them to avail of finance to do work they would like to do, rather than the current strategy of creating appetisers for the developer who is really just an investor.

He will come in and out of the market as he pleases. That is fair enough. That is what he does. He cannot be criticised for that. However, if the Government is going to guarantee a steady supply of housing units in the next few years, I do not think this is the way to go about it.

The few planners that I have spoken to in the last couple of weeks think this is a bit of a power grab. They believe that it will actually bring uncertainty to how this business is conducted and that there is a bit of a jump into the unknown about it. The Minister pointed out at the housing committee that there was no statutory element involved in the pre-application stage at present. He is right and it was a good point to make. However, what I suggest to him is that we should have probably introduced one before we got rid of the planners at local authority level, rather than go down the road we are going down.

If there is a feeling at Government level that local authorities and planners that work in local authorities have not got the wherewithal actually to deliver the sort of numbers the Government would like, would it be crazy to suggest that we actually make them fit for purpose and strengthen them in order that they can do what we would like them to do? If we want to end the housing crisis that threatens to be with us for a few years still, I still believe that the way forward is the idea that the State would use its own land and money to invest not just in supplying social housing but also affordable housing, rather than enticing the investment funds and the developers to supply units at a price that is too high for too many people. While the Government may facilitate the access to money, what that involves is burdening people with a debt that very often does not make sense. That was one of the things that led to the sub-prime crisis in the first place back in 2007.

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