Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. By and large, the Bill is necessary. Some would say there is a magic wand for solving the housing crisis. I certainly believe that a whole lot of magic wands are needed. There are a number of components that are needed, and this is certainly one of them. In general, I welcome the Bill. Some of the proposed amendments might set things back. While some of the amendments may be worthy of consideration, others might cause further problems. The proposal to extend planning permission is worthy, particularly with regard to judicial reviews. Judicial review can hold up a development for a long period of time. It is important that period of time is added onto the life of the planning permission to allow development to take place. Retrospective applications where the development did not substantially commence can also be extended by two years or more than three years if it is applied for within six months of the enactment of the legislation. The Minister of State might look at that again. Is six months restrictive? Should we say it may be within a year of the enactment of the legislation? I say that in a helpful way to try to keep planning applications alive. The Minister of State and I know there is a huge shortage of builders. There is a chronic shortage of tradesmen and tradeswomen. That has to be fixed. Even if you have your planning permission and are ready to go and the builder wants to get on site, they may not have the tradespeople. We need to be careful on that. Overall, I recognise the Bill is necessary and is one step in trying to fix the problem.

I turn to apartments, and I say this in a straightforward way. Going from a minimum of 37 sq. m to 32 sq. m and taking away some of the natural light is not good. If you step it out, 32 sq. m is six by five. It is a small space. I lived in a two-bedroom house that was 56 sq. m, and that was small. The sitting room was 8 ft 4 in. by 8 ft 6 in. as I recall it. It was a very small house. That is very restrictive. A question was raised at the housing committee earlier about the sums on this and if it will reduce the cost by between €50,000 and €100,000. I have not seen any evidence that it will. On a proportional basis it may be more like a €10,000 reduction. I also question the justification for this. It is supposed to be because there are fewer apartments and houses to rent.

6 o’clock

In actual fact, in the nine-month period beginning in June 2023, almost 17,000 extra tenancies were registered with the Residential Tenancies Board. As for this business that apartments are not happening, 9,700 of those were apartments. The questions in my head are where this is coming from and whether it will make such a difference. Is it Construction Industry Federation lobbying that is happening here? Are they lobbying us politicians to make these changes on the basis it will up profits, but we may not see extra apartments? I have huge concerns around that. It is important that we do it on the basis of evidence and I have not seen the evidence this is necessary. In fact, it is quite the contrary given the fact the number of rental accommodation units continues to increase. The private rental market has expanded and has not been able to cope with what is required because of the population increase. That is a fact we have to face up to. Everything needs to be on the basis of evidence. The evidence does not suggest there are no apartments coming on stream or extra houses coming up for rent. Neither have I seen evidence that it will reduce costs by €50,000 to €100,000. When I saw that in the press at the weekend, I straight away thought it did not stack up.

I expected something in this Bill around wind farm developments. I want to say what I have said to every Minister since 2011, including former Minister Phil Hogan. We do not have proper guidelines for wind farms. I am in favour of wind and solar energy. I do not believe in this thing of "No wind farms, no solar energy". We should have them but the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, knows as well as I do that planning has to be a balance of judgments. You have to weigh up the common good, environmental needs, electricity demands and a number of other factors. That has to be done properly. We have 2006 planning guidelines for wind farms. They were okay at the time, when wind turbines were 30 m or 40 m high - 100 ft or 120 ft - but they are now hitting 600 ft. Planning permission is being sought for turbines of up to nearly 200 m in height. They are springing up left, right and centre. Deputy John McGuinness will know this because he has been at the meetings on the Laois-Kilkenny border that I have been at. Cullahill, Ballinakill, Ballyragget and Durrow will all be affected. There is a rash of wind farms being proposed across that area.

I do not profess to have all the answers on this but I brought forward a Bill recently to try to put some order on this and to prompt some action on it by the Government. I am not saying the measures in it are the be-all and end-all. I would be open to it being amended, but at the very least we need guidelines in place. We may need a short-term moratorium until we get guidelines in place. I have read the answers I got over the years to parliamentary questions asking where the guidelines were. The answers were copy and paste over a period of nearly a decade. Communities need some say and some protection. Society needs electricity and we are electrifying our energy needs to try to reduce carbon emissions. Wind and solar are good sources but we do not have good guidelines for wind farms.

I got a reply from the Minister of State's Department on solar the other day. There are no guidelines whatsoever for solar, yet there are huge solar farms being planned. I support solar energy and the development of solar farms on a proper scale. The key bit of the answer to the parliamentary question said:

[The] Department has begun an initial scoping process to identify the component factors relevant to the preparation of planning guidelines for solar energy development, including...appropriate environmental reporting and public consultation requirements, and [a] possible timeframe... [for the] said guidelines.

It goes on and near the end it says, "In the interim," - so there is nothing there at the moment. It says scoping is at an early stage. At the bottom, it says: "In the interim, there are currently no specific planning guidelines in place in respect of solar energy development." That is shocking. Solar energy has been planned for years and particularly over the past three or four years it is starting to pop up, yet we do not actually have guidelines. Everything has to be proportionate and balanced. There is one thing the Government and the Department have to do - there are Department officials here. The Minister, his senior officials and the Secretary General of the Department have a responsibility to bring forward guidelines on this. I am a single Independent and I was able to introduce a Bill. I am not saying it is perfect but surely to God with the resources of the Department we can get straightforward guidelines in place to ensure these developments take place in a proper manner.

This is not something I like to say but I have to say it because it is in my mind. Is it a case the guidelines are not being put in place in order to allow developments to take place first and then the guidelines will be put in place afterwards, so the horse will have bolted and it will be too late? Is that what is happening? I hope it is not but that question is being raised and it has crossed my mind many times in the past ten or 15 years, given we are still relying on the 2006 ones. I ask the Minister of State and officials to take that on board and come back with guidelines. We need sensible guidelines which allow for wind farm and solar developments at a proper scale.

I welcome the overall thrust and intent of the Bill. A few amendments are being put forward. Some of them are worthy; some might cause problems. This Bill will not solve the housing crisis - no single piece of legislation will - but it is one of the pieces needed. As an Opposition TD, I welcome this.

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