Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State will no doubt be aware, more than anybody, about the inordinate delays that are taking place in An Bord Pleanála at the moment where, within 18 weeks, the board undertakes through legislation to give answers to people. Sadly, there are flaws in the procedures there. I know there are staffing issues but the procedures are non-strategic and, I must say, well beyond the definition of mediocrity with regard to public service in the face of the greatest housing and accommodation crisis the State has ever had.

We need a strategic approach. I will give one example of a housing application in Sligo, which is for one three-bedroom detached house. It is on half of a site that currently has full planning permission for two semi-detached houses. It is on zoned serviced land, and would be deemed an infill site within an existing estate. The same objector who objected to the original planning permission appealed it to An Bord Pleanála with the same case, view and reasons, yet that appeal was lodged as far back as June 2023 and we were expecting An Bord Pleanála to have an answer in October. No answer came in October. It then said it would have one on 17 January - dated that day so it came to the client a couple of days later. They got a letter saying that no, it would not have it today. The board stated it did not actually know when it would have it, such is the extent of the problems there.

I will give another example, which is case No. 318241 in County Louth. That appeal was lodged was appealed on 13 October 2023 and the decision was given on 1 February 2024. In other words, that one went in after the one that I referred to, and had its decision within three and a half months. The most recent correspondence this particular case has had told them that while it does not know when, most cases are taking about 12 months.

In a week when we had the Minister for higher education quite rightly pointing out that we need all our builders to return, what we have is an overly robust and prohibitive application of processes within An Bord Pleanála that do not match the crisis we are in. As the Minister of State will know, he has powers under sections 28 to 31 that can alleviate some of these difficulties, and he quite rightly did the same in 2022 in order that we could help with regard to the Ukrainian crisis by refurbishing buildings and erecting modular homes. It is now time because it is an emergency and because the situation demands that under the measures in the Act, which are afforded to the Minister of State, we need to adopt some extreme approaches such as that where there are a limited number of units on existing zoned and fully-serviced land, they are deemed to have planning. This has been done in the past. It can be done again. It takes political guts to do it, I will tell the Minister of State that.

However, the current situation is laughable in the extreme. While there are limitations on ministerial influence with regard to an individual case - and I would not dream of asking any Minister to interfere in an individual case - clearly there is some level of selectiveness within An Bord Pleanála, when you take the case I have outlined to the Minister of State having a decision months before a single, three-bedroom detached house on zoned and serviced land.

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