Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin is clear in its support for good quality, affordable and well-planned homes. We support this Bill, despite some of its flaws, as it repeals the SHD legislation. The legislation was undemocratic and undermined democratically agreed local, city and county development plans. It also reduced public participation and led to an increase in legal challenges. It was yet another deliberate attempt to erode the public and the community's engagement with planning matters.

Sinn Féin opposed the original legislation that was rushed through by the then Minister with responsibility for housing, Deputy Simon Coveney. It was a throwback to the good old Celtic tiger days, and some developers are getting very rich by flipping land on which planning permission has been granted. We are still playing the price for developer-led planning today. Poor planning decisions have led to poor quality developments, a lack of quality public open spaces, a severe lack of public services; and a lack of public transport infrastructure, in particular. They also failed in the provision of housing supply. According to the Dublin Democratic Planning Alliance, of the 70,000 plus units for which permission was secured through the SHD process, only 10,000 have commenced. The ministerial directive also opened the flood gates to material contraventions of the development plans. As a former councillor, I spent many hours, weeks and months working on county development plans with planning officials and consulting local community representatives, and democratically decided what we believed was a sustainable plan for our county.

The ministerial directive rode roughshod over those democratic decisions and further diminished the powers of local government. It is not often that I welcome a Government decision but I welcome the Government finally seeing sense and rowing back on this legislation. We said it would not work then and we were right. As the Minister knows, Sinn Féin is not in opposition for the sake of opposition. We offer solutions to the problems the Government creates. Sinn Féin proposed solutions, including the provision of statutory timelines for decisions from planning authorities, but these were rejected by the Government.

We have concerns. Due to the generous transition periods provided for in the new legislation, the flawed SHD legislation will, unfortunately, be with us through most of 2022, with the process remaining open for planning applications until June 2022. Some applications will be allowed up until October and there is a possibility of legal action late in 2022. The Minister delayed the introduction of planning restrictions on co-living and is now providing developers with the opportunity to benefit from the SHD legislation long after it expires. This is typical bad policy and bad governance. Sinn Féin submitted amendments to halve these timelines but they were unfortunately rejected by the Government, leaving the door of financial windfall ajar. I have no doubt that developers will walk through that door.

There is also no provision in the legislation for public participation in the pre-planning stages. Does the Government not believe it is best practice to involve the local community early when planning decisions are being made?

We also have concerns regarding the motivation for section 6. We oppose this leapfrog provision. The Minister has not made the case for this provision's inclusion in the Bill. It has nothing to do with residential development. We suspect it has been inserted for other reasons relating to large infrastructural projects. I call on the Minister to explain honestly why this section is in the Bill.

We introduced legislation that would remove the undemocratic power of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to issue mandatory local planning guidelines for local authorities. This eats into the already diminishing power of local authorities and local councillors who are democratically elected to make decisions on county and city development plans. These powers were introduced by the leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Kelly, and were used twice by Eoghan Murphy to bring us co-living, build-to-rent accommodation and mandatory height limits. Sinn Féin has introduced legislation that would repeal these powers and the guidelines issued under them. Again, we are working on solution-focused responses to bad Government policies. SHDs, co-living and material contraventions of development plans are undemocratic. They undermine local city and county development plans, reduce participation and confidence in the system and have led to an increase in the number of legal challenges as people rightly believe this is the only route they can take to ensure their voices are heard. I ask the Minister to take these concerns on board and to explain honestly and openly why he has opposed the amendments proposed by Sinn Féin.

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