Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want record my extreme disappointment at what is essentially the cutting short of pre-legislative scrutiny of this significant legislation following the Minister’s decision to introduce the Bill in the Seanad. I do not accept that the emergency amendments which the Minister wants to bring forward had be done in this way. They could have been attached to another Bill and I will speak to that in a moment.

The really concerning thing is that the Minister asked for pre-legislative scrutiny. We were on schedule and, in fact, would have had it completed within seven weeks and not the eight weeks as is now required. That would have then meant that the Seanad, and indeed ourselves in the Dáil, would have had the benefit of all of that, something that was effectively denied, because the Bill was published and introduced before that process was concluded.

I say this as I have said so many other times, that rushing through complex planning legislation, even where we may agree on some aspects of it and that will not necessarily be the case today, is not a good way to make planning legislation. We have too many examples of legislation being rushed at the last minute with unintended consequences, or errors subsequently being found and changes having to be made. As it was before I suspect it will be in respect of this.

I thank the officials for the two briefings they gave us, both at Seanad and Dáil stages, and they were exceptionally helpful. Unfortunately, it does not deal with the many concerns I have with aspects of this Bill. I will take the three sections of the Bill in turn.

The Minister is making a fundamental mistake with the proposed changes to the appointments' process of An Bord Pleanála. The panel system needed to be changed and I have no doubt about that. I have argued before and will continue to argue for a hybrid system where we have nominating bodies updated on a regular basis with professional expertise and knowledge appointing into an open and transparent public competition process, what I call a Public Appointments Service plus, to enable the Minister then to ensure that the very best, most qualified and competent candidates get the job.

We do not even know what is the Minister’s process. He is asking us to support a provision whereby:

The Minister shall establish a suitable, independent, objective, and transparent procedure (which may include the establishment of a committee), in accordance with which recommendations may be made to the Minister [for appointments].

Basically, the Minister is asking us to trust him to design a process which may or may not be the things said in the Bill. That is a mistake and I agree with commentary in the public domain that this is a return to a period where there was far greater ministerial and Government influence in appointments and, therefore, in the shape and direction of the board. That is a backward step and one I cannot support and we have amendments to deal with that on Committee Stage.

I understand the need to appoint an interim chair. That could have been done by way of a single amendment but it is a mistake to appoint somebody from within the Civil Service. That is no disrespect to the individual the Minister has appointed. What the board needs right now in order to help restore public confidence is someone from outside the Government sector and of the Civil Service who is clearly qualified to do the very specific sets of jobs. The problem is that by appointing somebody from within the Civil Service, this is compromised in terms of both perception and reality. The way in which the Minister has constructed that facility is a mistake.

Most of what the Minister has included for An Bord Pleanála in this legislation could have been dealt with in the planning Bill and we could have had a much more rounded discussion through PLS next year on all of that. I see no reason why this has to be rushed through in the way it is being done.

On the Planning and Development and Foreshore (Amendment) Bill 2022, we understand from the officials that this is simply clarifying what was the understanding of the existing 1933 Act, although if the 1933 Act was clear we would not have required a clarification of it. My concern here, therefore, is less profound than in respect of An Bord Pleanála but we received very strong evidence at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, both from the wind farm and offshore wind industry, and from the environmental sector, of a whole set of problems. I have some sympathy, in particular, with the environmental sector that there could either be unintended consequences both in respect of the subsoil and where that starts and ends, but also in respect of the possible exclusive licensing use of the water column, which could have significant impacts for other users. Due to the fact that we have not had adequate time to scrutinise or tease that out, we are left in a difficult position. Again, I and others have amendments to deal with that.

Finally, with respect to the suspension of the Part 8 planning process, we have always said that if the Minister brought forward proposals which helped to accelerate the and increase delivery of social and affordable housing we would look at them with an open mind and support them, if necessary. What the Minister is proposing is very controversial. We should not dispute that at all. It will cause enormous difficulties for elected members. There will be many managers who will be very reluctant to use this as they have been reluctant to use emergency powers to date. It will also cause very significant difficulties with communities because their right to public participation is being withdrawn. In fact, if the Minister had come to some of us to ask us our view on how to expedite the delivery of social and affordable housing, we would have pointed to any number of ways in which he could have done it more effectively. Even after the 14 to 20 weeks of Part 8, in many instances there are two to four years of stage 3 and stage 4 in the four stage approval process which delays projects and in many cases completely unnecessarily. I still think there is a better way of doing this but we will not oppose this amendment and will not stand in the Minister’s way of doing what is going to do. I want to place some concerns on the record and make a very specific request.

It was not clear from our discussions with the officials what would be gained. If Part 8 is 20 weeks, but during Part 8 managers do a series of other things which will still have to be done under this procedure, we asked the officials would it involve five, ten or 20 weeks and they did not know.

Given that there is invariably a 12 to 18-month period of design approval, cost appraisal, tendering and procurement after planning is granted under this procedure, we asked how long the procedure will be available for. In real terms, people will not be able to avail of this at the latter end of next year or early in 2024 unless we change stages 3 and 4 in the process. It is not clear what the gain will be and how many units could be provided. The more clarity we get on that the better. It is not yet clear, in the public domain at least, what additionality this will bring on top of the existing pipeline.

There is also, inevitably, a concern about litigation. If we completely remove public participation, that opens up the possibility of litigation and would have the effect of slowing down projects. We raised this matter with the officials and they gave us an answer but I do not think any of us on the Opposition side of the briefing were satisfied.

I have come into the Chamber over and over again to ask the Minister to take emergency measures. In fact, one of the most bizarre exchanges in our meeting was when I asked why we were not asking managers to use the existing emergency procedures they have rather than this. We were told it was because the power was for an emergency and we were not in an emergency. We were also told this was not an emergency provision, but rather an expedited provision. That was a wonderful use of the English language by hard-working officials in the Department. The Minister can be proud of them.

It is not clear what we will get out of any of this, but we call on the Minister to take emergency measures. He is bringing this forward as an emergency measure by another name and, therefore, we will not stand in his way. I urge the Minister to bring forward to the committee, on a regular basis, a specific report, which could be an addendum to the social housing pipeline report, setting out clearly where the sites are, how they are being progressed and what they are being progressed for.

There has been some speculation that this is specifically related to those lands for which the Supplementary Estimate is providing additional finance in order to pay down the historic debt. The Minister knows that while we would have preferred that money to have been spent on social and affordable housing this year rather than forgoing the money, it is better that it is spent on that debt. If that is the case, the Minister should give us as much information as possible, including where the land is and the number of units. The Minister's officials spoke about consultation with elected members, although that involves a report at a municipal or area committee. There should be as much engagement with elected members as possible as these provisions go through.

There are any number of ways to accelerate the delivery of social and affordable homes. There is no need for such a complex design and approval process between the local authority and Department. It takes too long and the process should be shortened or scrapped.

Given that there are unit cost ceilings in the Department and a tendering and procurement process, cost appraisal is a complete waste of time. Tendering in and of itself takes far too long. We need to move to three or five-year regional and tiered agreements, rather than having to go out to tender for every single job. In a climate where every six to 12 months of a delay adds 5%, 10% or 15% to costs, the sooner we grapple with the real problem in terms of delivering social and affordable housing, which is the cumbersome and outdated four-stage process imposed by the Minister's Department and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the better.

We are not opposing the proposals. We will monitor them very carefully. We would like the Minister to give us full transparency and maximum information in order that we can scrutinise the Bill in committee. As time goes by, we will see whether it will deliver anything at any greater speed than is currently the case.

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