Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will speak directly to the purpose of the Bill in front of us. I will not go into the wider issues people have raised because time is an issue and because we will have oral questions on a number of the issues during Question Time later this evening or early tomorrow morning, depending on how things go. The amendments process will give me a chance to speak in more detail on some particular issues. I will read from my notes.

Deputy Cowen spoke well about the balance we have to achieve with this legislation. I agree with his comments on that point. This legislation is primarily to do with a second extension. It is temporary and it will fall out of law. It will only be in the case of certain conditions that have to be met. It is about the completion of houses that are being built at the moment.

Deputies Clare Daly and O'Rourke talked about the work they have done to help identify the mistakes and to improve this amendment. Recognition must be given to the Deputies for the work they did to make sure this extension will apply to both periods - the original period and the first extension - in terms of who can apply for the second extension.

Deputy Ó Broin talked about this having a significant impact on planning. The significant impact will be on continuing to build the houses that are being built. As for this being a bad way to introduce legislation, I acknowledge it is not ideal but when what was potentially about to happen came to my attention, I had to make a call. A much more substantive planning and development Bill is on Report Stage, which the Minister of State, Deputy English, has been taking. It came to my attention it would not be completed this side of August because of amendments the Government wanted to table in the Seanad to recognise contributions made by the Opposition on the new office of the regulator and its role in transport and planning. I decided because of this particular provision that it was better to bring it forward in this way and that we needed to act because of the implications it might have for current builds. I apologise for that. I appreciate the need to get around the complexity of this. The committee has looked at this issue previously to a degree and it understands it. I know from the engagement I have had with the committee that it understands the issues very well.

I am open to sharing information. It has always been my way whether as a backbencher or Minister of State to work in co-operation with other Members of the House and nothing has changed in that regard. The letter the Deputy wrote to me only came back into my mind as he mentioned it. It is on my chair to be dealt with. I did not get around to dealing with it. If the Deputy was familiar with my filing arrangement in my office, he would know that being on my chair is the most important place something can be because I cannot sit down until I deal with it unless I find a second chair, which I did in this instance because it has been a particularly busy week. My intention is always to share as much information as possible, particularly when we have to work together to get something important like this done.

From the interaction the Department has regularly with different housing bodies and the Construction Industry Federation, we know there are somewhere between 50 and 100 developments currently under construction that need to avail of this extension in order that they can be completed efficiently. The figure is somewhere around 75; it is not an exact figure. They are mainly in the commuter belt and all have Part V provisions attached to them but we do not have a database of what is being built, what stage it is at or what number extension it is at. We do not have those hard data to drive this but we have enough of a concern to know this is essential legislation that needs to be passed as soon as possible.

Only one single period of extension can be secured, as it is drafted in the Bill. The original permission and what was in that permission will apply because it is purely a technical extension. The local authority will have the power to judge what is reasonable in terms of the timeline for the second extension and that it is substantially commenced regardless of whether it is an original permission or whether it was commenced in a second permission. If it was substantially commenced in the first original planning permission or in the extension, it can avail of the second extension. The timeline for how much it can avail will be decided by the judgment of the local authority based on its closer knowledge of what is happening.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan asked if there will be a delay to the original Bill this was housed in. There absolutely will not be because it is important legislation. It is on Report Stage already. It would have concluded had there not been other resource or capacity constraints in the final week of Oireachtas business and because we wanted to table further amendments to that Bill in the Seanad. The national planning framework will be announced in November. The Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016 needs to be enacted before that to put it on a proper basis. We need to move quickly with the new office of the regulator and we have to be cognisant of our responsibilities on foot of the Mahon report.

There is nothing in law to define a substantial development but there is a significant amount of case law to guide us on it. Generally we talk about something being past the point of no return in so far as development is concerned. Local authorities will have the discretion on the length of time to make sure no one is trying to take unfair advantage of the good faith in which we are acting in the House to make sure developments currently under construction can be completed.

I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett's points on land hoarding. We are in a crisis in which land hoarding is absolutely unacceptable. We can deal with the amendments as we work through them. There is a big risk in many of the amendments, which I will make clear when we come to them, that unintended consequences would flow from them. We are fearful they would bring other developments - not only those related to housing - to a standstill, which was not the intention. This is essentially a technical amendment. On a wider point, any new house coming online, will help us in dealing with things such as affordable rent, affordable purchase and the homelessness crisis we face. Some of those families have found themselves homeless as a result of the demands in the rental market.

I did not bring other issues into this Bill even though Deputy Boyd Barrett might have liked to do that. I did not want to confuse the specific intentions of the Bill. I also recognise that what I am doing here is an exception. As it would be unfair to Deputies to ask them to consider a larger or omnibus Bill in this way, I have kept it tight. It is to meet the intentions of the House as per a previous Bill that was enacted. Had the original Act been drafted differently, from a technical construction point of view, we could have commenced this extension without the need for this Bill at all. It was always the House's intention to do what is in this Bill but a technical drafting point kept us from doing it.

I will address some of the issues and the fear of land hoarding in the amendments. If Deputy Clare Daly looks at the amendment that has been tabled by her and Deputy Wallace, she will see the provision to lower the threshold to five houses creates the risk of the possibility of land hoarding. There is potentially a contradiction in the Deputy's contribution on Second Stage in terms of what is in the amendment that has been tabled. On the Deputy's points on EIA, there is a technical contradiction in the amendment that has been tabled. If an EIA was not required at the time the original permission was granted, it will not be required now because it is a technical extension. The provisions in Section 28(1) and 28(2) are not related in that way.

Deputy Catherine Murphy talked about rushed legislation and that it is happening too often. The only point I would make is to ask what she would have me do. When it came to my attention that this particular provision would not be passed at this point in time and that it would mean that badly-needed houses would not be completed as a result, I had no choice but to bring it forward in this way. To be clear, it provides for a maximum of five years or to 2021. At the end of 2021, this will fall out of law and it will no longer be the case. There will be no extensions beyond that period. Nothing in this says the local authority must give a five-year extension. It will judge based on the application that is made. I will speak to it and how much time would be required to get the development completed when I speak on one of Deputy Ó Broin's amendments.

Deputy Eamon Ryan asked about the relationship between the two provisions in section 28(1) and 28(2). They were always meant to be treated differently. They are two separate things and there was always meant to be a staggered commencement. Section 28(2) was always meant to be commenced almost immediately and section 28(1) was meant to follow at a later date. Section 28(1) has very wide-ranging implications and time is needed for all the stakeholders with regard to infrastructural development to adapt to that, whereas section 28(2) is a simple technical extension to meet an original intention of another Bill that already made its way through the House. I will commence section 28(1) at the end of this year because it is a good section and it is necessary. We recognise that but it is a permanent change for those who required an EIA at the time to the effect that they would require another EIA when they sought a first extension. As it does not apply to second extensions, it does not apply to what we are trying to do here. While section 28(1) and 28(2) are warehoused in the same section, they do not impact upon each other in that regard. If one did not require an EIA at the point of the original permission, one will not require one now when one seeks the second extension. That is all we are doing with this. It applies to developments with a minimum of 20 units or houses requiring a second extension which did not require an EIA at the original point of permission. It will not cover the new fast-track planning scheme. People who get permissions under that new scheme, which only came into effect very recently, will be allowed to get a first extension but by the time they need to go for a second extension, this will have fallen out of law. The second extension will not apply to them. We became aware of the need to be in compliance or more in synch with EU law at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015.

It is no big concern on the EU side; the concern is more on our side that we would be in synch with EU laws. The normal period for implementation would be one year and that is why we are commencing it at the end of this year. I thank Deputies O'Dowd and Mattie McGrath for their support of the Bill.

See this speech in context