Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I support the amendments that have been tabled. We have had a very detailed discussion of this part of the legislation, which is probably the most significant part of it. Myself and a number of other Deputies tabled very detailed amendments at Committee Stage. It is not my intention to repeat the detail of all of those. I would just like to make some general comments, if I can. I thank the Minister but particularly the staff in the Department who made themselves available at quite a considerable length, both inside and outside the committee, to assist us in at least grappling with issues, irrespective of whether we ended up opposing them.

Sinn Féin's position at the start of this was that we accepted that there was a problem in large-scale planning applications. The average length of time of 81 weeks for the 15 planning applications of 100 units or more this year simply was not acceptable. We were in agreement with the Minister that there was a problem that had to be resolved. We said to the Minister throughout the debate that if he was able to provide us with evidence that this was the best way to address the problem, we would support him. I have to say, having spent a considerable amount of time going through the evidence that we have been provided with, I am finally of the view that this is not the best way to tackle the problem and that there are better ways to do so.

The reason I say that is because I believe the Minister has failed to identify the central cause of the problem of that 44 week delay in the application process. As most Deputies here will know, any planning application process has three phases. There is the pre-planning application, the formal application to the council and then the An Bord Pleanála appeal. It is clear from the data the Minister's Department gave us that the longest period of delay in the process is pre-planning. The reason for that is because there is no tight statutory framework within which that takes place. This Bill does provide for a different type of pre-planning but it would have been much better if a formal pre-planning process of a set number of weeks was provided for within the existing system.

When one looks at the planning process once a formal application has been made to the local authority and when one strips out those weeks that are the result of the applicant taking time to provide additional information, all of the excess time is accounted for. That is no wonder, either because some applicants put in poor quality applications or were slow to come back with information, but also because, under law, they have six months to do so. Therefore, if the Government reduced the amount of time applicants had to provide additional information and if it improved pre-planning in order that any big areas of concern for additional information were included, it could reduce that amount of time dramatically.

On the face of it, An Bord Pleanála appears to have the shortest element of time in the process. That is because An Bord Pleanála's job is fundamentally different from that of a local authority. It does not have to sit through all of the detail of the application but only deal with the narrowly defined aspects of the appeal. While I am not in any way criticising An Bord Pleanála, the Government could improve the timeline for An Bord Pleanála to deal with those appeals by providing them with extra staff. If it was a 25 week process that the Minister wanted instead of 81, which is the average, I believe he could have achieved that or something close to it without making the fundamental mistake of this section of the Bill, which I think he is making.

What is that fundamental mistake? The Minister is taking the primary responsibility for making the decision about a large planning application away from the planning officials in a local authority. That is what he is doing. While he is still allowing them to be consulted, that is a very different thing. That has two consequences. The first is that the Minister is now expecting a smaller group of officials in An Bord Pleanála who have a very specific set of expertise to assume the level of knowledge of the local environment, context, policies and development plans of ten to 15 local authorities. That is no criticism of An Bord Pleanála staff. How is that group of people meant to assume that detailed level of knowledge that they do not currently have? The second consequence is that the Minister is undermining the role of the county and city development plan in those decisions. As the Minister and his officials know, the statutory standing of the county of city development plan to a local authority planning process is of a different nature to a decision of An Bord Pleanála. Because of that, the democratically elected role of the members of the council in deciding that county development plan is also undermined. I believe those are fundamental changes to the planning process that are not good. In my view, they are not necessary because there are better ways of doing this and they therefore do not provide justification for this emergency measure.

I am also genuinely concerned about the lack of appeal. I am concerned both in terms of the quality of the planning decisions and the right of third parties, particularly communities, to have a say in that process, but I also think that the Government is going to end up in legal difficulties with this in terms of the State's obligations under the Aarhus Convention and subsequent EU directives. I hope that does not happen but I do think it is something that is going to take place. My concern in all of this is that, as a result of pushing through this measure to fix an existing problem that is, in a way, badly designed, we are going to end up with bad planning decisions, including in local authorities. Many members of local authorities who may support this measure because they want to support the increase of the supply of housing would be negatively affected by this. I am deeply concerned about another issue. I accept the Minister at his word that he only intends this measure to be in place for a short period of time. However, unfortunately, things that are put on the Statute Book as emergency measures too often end up on the Statute Book permanently. Therefore, this could become the norm and have all sorts of negative consequences afterwards.

While I absolutely accept the bona fides of what the Minister is trying to do to solve a problem that exists, I believe this is the wrong way of doing it. Notwithstanding the effort that the officials have made, I think this is bad legislation. On those grounds, Sinn Féin will be opposing this section of the Bill. There are other aspects of the Bill which we will come to later that I believe are actually quite good. However, we are being forced to oppose those positive elements because this primary section of the legislation is of such a negative weight that it outweighs the positives. Therefore, we will be voting against the legislation.

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