Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Nolan for raising these issues regarding our planning system. We all acknowledge the need for a fit-for-purpose planning system in our country for the development of homes, industry and public infrastructure. As the Deputy will be aware, we have now adopted a national development plan out to 2030 that involves public expenditure of €165 billion across all of the main areas, including building the homes we need, building our public transport and road infrastructure, introducing climate action measures and investing in enterprises, etc.

Having a planning system that is fair and acts in a timely fashion is absolutely fundamental to the achievement of those objectives. That is why the Deputy will no doubt be aware of the initiative being led by the Attorney General. It is the first of the its kind. He and a team of dedicated experts are re-examining the entire planning legislative framework with a view to bringing forward new legislation that the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, will bring to the Government over the period ahead.

The idea is to make our system more efficient and reduce the level of legal risk. People are entitled to object and bring judicial reviews, but we certainly do not want major projects of regional or national importance to end up before the courts and have planning permission rescinded on a legal point of law. The planning system has to be robust and, ultimately, be vindicated in the great majority of instances where such legal challenges are taken.

We also do not want frivolous or vexatious objections to developments across the country that are badly needed and which must take place. Along with the Taoiseach and the Government as a whole, I have welcomed the decision in respect of the judicial review taken in the Glanbia case.

People who took that case had a right to bring it. It has now gone through due process. It has been concluded and we welcome it. We all acknowledge that our agriculture industry is on a journey. It is up for that journey. Embracing sustainability, dealing with the climate action issues and challenges with reducing emissions and so on is vital. The Deputy mentioned the issue of rural and one-off homes. The evidence points to the strong delivery of new homes in rural Ireland in recent years. Planning permission has been granted for more than 28,000 rural houses in the five years to the end of quarter 3 last year. About 80% of that number was actually built. The latest CSO figures indicated a 38% increase in permissions for one-off houses in the year to the end of September 2021 when compared with the previous year. It went up by about 5,000 to 7,000. That is not evidence of a system that is completely broken when it comes to building one-off homes. The number is increasingly significantly. There is a balance to be struck between ensuring that developments are sustainable, proportionate and suitable to the area in which they take place.

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