Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Boyd Barrett asked about the strategic housing development scheme. I sometimes get the housing schemes mixed up because there are so many of them, but I think that is the scheme which allows a developer building 100 units or more to go straight to An Bord Pleanála rather than the two-step process involving going to a local authority first and then, if necessary, An Bord Pleanála. The scheme was logically designed to speed up the planning process such that homes could be built more quickly. As the Deputy mentioned, permission for 16,000 units has been granted under the scheme. Construction has commenced on 6,000 of the units. Construction has not commenced on 10,000 of them, but we do not know on how many of those work will commence in the coming months or years. We need to see that develop in the period ahead. We also need to consider the counterfactual question of whether homes that went through the old process are being commenced or built more quickly.

See this speech in context