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

I think I answered this question yesterday and today. Perhaps I can elaborate a little on what I said earlier. The purpose of the strategic housing development scheme is to speed up the planning process. If somebody wants to build an apartment block or a housing estate, there is a two-step process. When one submits a planning application to the council, people can make observations on it. The decision that is made by the council can be appealed to An Bord Pleanála, and the whole process happens all over again. The idea behind the strategic housing development scheme is a sensible and logical one. It allows somebody who is building 100 homes or more to skip one step in the process and go straight to An Bord Pleanála. The purpose of it was to fast-track the planning process to cut weeks or months off the time it takes to build new homes. That is the intention behind it. As the Deputy has pointed out, some 16,000 new homes have been granted permission under the scheme. Some 6,000 of them are under construction. The other 10,000 homes are not yet under construction, but they could well come into construction over the next year.

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