Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to contribute to this debate today. I thank the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, for making his officials available for briefings on this Bill to the Oireachtas committee, and for engaging with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage to address all our questions, our concerns and our ideas. I understand the concerns about the limits on debate time and the pre-legislative scrutiny report not yet being published. I also appreciate the reasoning behind the need to progress the Bill and why these issues are so urgent. We all appreciate that the housing crisis is exactly that. It is an emergency and a crisis. Some areas, therefore, require immediate legislative action. This Bill is one of those areas.

The Bill forms part of the An Bord Pleanála reform agenda. One of the reasons we need swift action on the Bill is the immediate need to put in place a new interim chairperson for An Bord Pleanála to help unlock the planning delays plaguing our housing system. An Bord Pleanála has gone through a very turbulent time recently. We know this. We need to overhaul and reform the board, not only to restore public trust and confidence, but to also make it an efficient key player in our planning system. That cannot happen quickly enough.

It is important also to highlight that the main legislative provisions relating to An Bord Pleanála are being examined in detail as part of the review of planning legislation currently being led by the Attorney General. This Bill will deal with initial matters requiring immediate action. The legislation provides that the board will have 14 members but that can be increased where the Minister deems it necessary. Given the massive challenges An Bord Pleanála faces, and the delays in decisions that are plaguing developments, I believe the decision to extend beyond 14 members is now necessary.

It is important to remember that it is not just housing developments that are hit with delays and timeline issues. Offshore and wind energy projects are also impacted. The importance of progressing our delivery of offshore wind projects does not need to be overstated. The foreshore piece in the Bill is a minor amendment but will ensure that the body of water above the seabed is included in the definition of the foreshore. I am aware there are some concerns in this regard from Wind Energy Ireland and I hope its concerns can be heard and allayed by the Minister, if he has not already done so. We all know how important offshore wind is in meeting our 2030 targets for emissions reductions. Improvements in the planning system need to address the decision delays that are preventing us from getting to those crucial targets.

Clearly the most vital and pressing need we have is to ramp up housing supply. In the current climate, the impact of inflation, supply-chain issues and higher interest rates make increasing supply all the more challenging and the need all the greater. In this context, the Bill will bring forward accelerated measures to support local authorities to deliver social and affordable housing through the planning system and by using modern construction methods. The proposed planning exemption will, hopefully, allow us to make quicker progress on housing vulnerable people who are on our housing waiting lists while also providing an opportunity to accelerate affordable and cost-rental delivery, which we need to do.

If we are allowing for accelerated housing delivery on certain local authority and State-owned lands, and if this is to be driven by local authorities, then we will need to look at the tenure mix on these lands to cater for everybody.

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