Dáil debates

Tuesday, 11 May 2021

Residential Property Market: Motion [Private Members]

 

7:35 pm

Photo of Verona MurphyVerona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am being very careful. I have spent a lot of time on this. He is actually misleading people and refused to acknowledge that yesterday when the evidence was presented.

He has presented a letter to Wexford County Council contrary to what the Minister sent to Wexford County Council and refuses to acknowledge it. I will continue, a Cheann Comhairle, bearing in mind that we have had an interruption.

Subsequent to my speech on the floor of the Dáil floor on 1 April, I procured the opinion of former Attorney General and senior counsel, Senator Michael McDowell. His opinion concluded the regulator was and is acting ultra vires. I put that to the regulator, from whom I received no response. I am not alone in my view on the regulator's thoughts. Senior counsel for Cork County Council, in judicial review proceedings, described the regulator's recommendation to the Minister as unlawful, flawed, irrational, of no legal effect and without jurisdiction.

On the same subject, from which the Ceann Comhairle will be glad to hear I am moving on, last night on "Claire Byrne Live", we heard the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, talk about high-density developments and, in the same breath, about family homes of three or four bed semi-detached houses, probably with gardens. Clearly, the Minister of State is asleep and has not read his own guidelines.

The specific planning policy requirement, SPPR 4, which Mr. Justice Collins referred to as unimplementable, is a specific planning policy requirement - I want the Ministers to listen carefully - to "avoid mono-type building typologies (e.g. two storey or own-door houses only)". This is the policy of the compact, high-density development that is to apply to every town of more than 5,000 people. Watching the Minister of State last night, it was as plain as a pikestaff he was not aware this SPPR 4 existed. It makes no provision for three or four-bedroom homes. Three or four-bedroom semi-detached homes of the type the Minister of State envisages can be developed in the range of 20 to 30 dwellings per hectare. His policy provides for 35 to 50 and not less than 30, according to the regulator, so I do not envisage any three or four-bedroom semi-detached houses.

The Minister and the regulator refuse to allow local authorities to adopt planning policies to provide for family homes. When will the Government wake up? This regulator will have the policy enshrined in every county development plan before it realises what has happened. The SPPR 4 must be abandoned. It is clear the regulator is the fox in the fowl house of, what is now, Fianna Fáil's housing policy. The consequence of his interpretation of the Minister's guidelines will choke housing supply. It will put an end to family homes, increase house prices and create the ghettos of tomorrow. It is the policy that will create the tribunals of tomorrow.

The regulator has refused to debate with me on national radio. Being the cute fox he is, when he is challenged he recoils to his little office in Grangegorman, or probably a big office which is bigger than some of the houses he is proposing.

Who is regulating the regulator? It would appear from his presentation to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, he is the Steve Silvermint of planning. He has come to save us from the darkest days of the planning tribunals. I hope the Taoiseach will not be faced with the surprise that faced him in this House last week, when he realised the effect of the policies of this Government in real terms, in that county councils are taking long-term leases from cuckoo funds.

The Government needs to have an epiphany in relation to the planning regulator and deal with the red fox in the fowl house. If it does not, there will be few if any family homes. Towns will be ghettoised and there will not be a GAA team left in rural Ireland.

I apologise to my colleague.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.