Edward Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Leas-Cheann Comhairle on his new role. I congratulate the two Ministers and wish them the best of luck in what is clearly a very challenging role.

After spending over 20 years on Wicklow County Council and having dealt with four county development plans, I would like to make a number of points on the Housing Commission report. Many aspects are good but some show a disconnect with realities on the ground. In this regard, I will deal with rural planning first.

Page 186 of the report states, “Strengthen the environmental and planning thresholds for single housing in rural areas”. I totally disagree with this. The restrictions on planning are already very stringent, as I know too well. Another proposal states: “Revoke amendments to the Building Control Regulation 2014 that allow opt-outs from the Building Control (Amendment) Regulations (BCAR) for single dwellings”. If this were implemented, it would add about €15,000 to the cost of building a one-off rural house. This is an unnecessary cost.

There is also a proposal to increase development levies on rural dwellings, which proposal I oppose. Both of these proposals would potentially reduce housebuilding, not increase it, which we are all trying to do.

I commend the proposal to develop villages and nodes, but most villages have no wastewater treatment plants to allow for their expansion.

The second point I raise relates to the national planning framework. The delay in this being issued has resulted in 325 houses being refused planning permission in Blessington, County Wicklow, because the town population targets were too low as the new population targets were not issued by the framework. This is purely a red tape issue that has stopped this badly needed house building and there is a really simple fix.

On a related matter, the Office of the Planning Regulator removed a headroom option in zoning. This means the amount of land zoned exactly matches the population targets. This does not take account of the fact that some zoned land will not be developed or will be refused planning permission. In the 2022 Wicklow development plan, we had the ludicrous situation whereby in many towns, land was dezoned to comply with this directive. There are outdated census figures at a time of a housing shortage.

My third point relates to affordable housing, which is a massive issue. The report rightly identifies the squeezed middle on page 146. These are the thousands who do not qualify for social housing and cannot afford a mortgage. We have not done nearly enough for them. We need to put much more emphasis on this group. There are good recommendations in the report around simplifying the process but we need to come up with more imaginative solutions, such as councils identifying land and zoning it for affordable housing, and working with builders to complete the project. Those in the squeezed middle are being squeezed financially but are also being squeezed by housing bodies, which often buy full estates, thus excluding all other buyers, and by councils buying one-off houses. This gets very little attention and needs to be discussed.

All of the above relates to supply. The recommendations I have made can all contribute to increased supply. We will not solve the problem quickly, but we must turn the corner and see progress.

See this speech in context