Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, between lines 11 and 12, to insert the following:

“PART 1

PRELIMINARY AND GENERAL

Short title, collective citation, construction, and commencement

1.(1) This Act may be cited as the Planning and Development, Maritime and Valuation (Amendment) Act 2022.

(2) The Planning and Development Acts 2000 to 2021 and Part 2may be cited together as the Planning and Development Acts 2000 to 2022 and they shall be construed together as one.

(3) The Maritime Area Planning Act 2021 and Part 3may be cited together as the Maritime Area Planning Acts 2021 and 2022 and they shall be construed together as one.

(4) This Act, other than sections 3to 7of Part 2, and Part 4, shall come into operation on such day or days as the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage may by order or orders appoint, either generally or with reference to any particular purpose or provision, and different days may be so appointed for different purposes or provisions.”.

The amendment concerns changes to the Short Title to incorporate the Government amendments, the citation of the Planning and Development Acts, 2000 to 2021, and Part 2 of this Act, to be construed as one, and changes to Part 3 of the Maritime Area Planning Acts, 2021 and 2022, to be construed together as one, and commencement provisions. Amendment No. 82 provides for consequential alteration to the Long Title to allow for the amendments to be brought forward on Committee Stage.

I wish to respond to recent misleading reports in the media that the Government is trying to ram through or to rush legislation without proper scrutiny. This is simply incorrect.

The Government amendments being considered on Committee Stage are broadly technical in nature or are urgent. For example, the few short Valuation Acts amendments are needed in advance of a legislative deadline to publish out-of-date pre-pandemic property valuations in September 2022. The similarly brief short-term letting amendments are urgently needed to help address the current supply shortage in the private rental sector, specifically in rent pressure zones, RPZs, which are the areas of highest housing demand, thereby delivering increased numbers of units to the sector and stabilising rents.

The section 31 amendments will introduce clarity and consistency of language and procedure into the ministerial direction process. These amendments need to be operational as soon as possible in advance of the end of the summer to benefit from the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR, and stakeholders such as the public, planning authorities, regional assemblies and the Minister in the review of several ongoing statutory development plans, which plans are otherwise due to be adopted by the end of the summer. The design-flexibility provisions have been worked on for some time by my Department with the assistance of the Office of the Attorney General. Equally, they are being applied to the maritime area planning amendments, which are urgently needed to facilitate up to eight expected large-scale applications for offshore wind farms. Initial maritime area consents, MACs, are currently being considered by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications in advance of the commencement of a pre-planning process with An Bord Pleanála. Such renewable energy projects will go a long way towards helping to achieve Ireland's renewable energy targets for 2030. If the flexibility provisions are not in place, together with the numerous other minor technical amendments to the maritime area planning legislation, the developers might delay their application processes to wait for this innovative and useful legislation.

Finally, the judicial review legislation amendments, which amount to two pages only, were proposed to address straightforward issues in the judicial review process, to help move judicial review cases on quickly and to have timely decisions on them. As I confirmed to the House this morning, we have reflected on the concerns relating to the judicial review amendments raised by colleagues in the House and have, as a result, proposed to withdraw what was known as amendment No. 25 in the combined white list of Committee Stage amendments – that amendment appeared to be raising most concerns – so it could be reconsidered in future legislative proposals by the Government. The remaining two judicial review proposals are quite straightforward and seek to better align our judicial review process with the provisions explicitly provided for in the EU's environmental impact assessment directive outlining that administrative processes should be exhausted before recourse is had to expensive and lengthy judicial review processes.

I trust the above gives a better outline of the reasons for the inclusion of the amendments today, most of which were flagged in substance on 1 April in the Seanad. Opposition Senators were briefed on 25 May and some Deputies attended. Further briefings were held this week. An hour and a half was allocated but the time was not used up because members of the Opposition ran out of questions to raise.

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