Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)

I thank the Chair for facilitating me. My apologies.

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words on this Bill. As usual, I thank the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, which again has been under pressure to produce a digest for us. The Bill has 17 sections and two Parts. I have both positive and negative things to say about it but I never agree with waiving pre-legislative scrutiny. Doing so is a bad decision. There are issues that should have been teased out through pre-legislative scrutiny. There was no regulatory impact statement and the legislation is being rushed through. As said by Deputy Ward, we are now amending an Act that was discussed for hours and hours. I feel for the staff because the 2024 legislation was practically impossible, involving long hours and late nights.

The 2024 legislation was to amend the 2000 Act to bring clarity and certainty, not just to the legality of what was set out in the latter but also in relation to the market. It has utterly failed to do that and we have not implemented it. There have been two orders to implement two little parts of it. Here we are today, in the second last week of the term, rushing through a Bill that will amend an Act passed only a few months ago after years of discussion. It is a most unacceptable way to do business. It promotes the narrative that the Government is leading with, namely that objectors are the cause of the problem. I say again on the record that any planning system should be robust enough to deal effectively and quickly with concerned residents’ or citizens’ submissions. I do not believe these submissions are objections. The people I know go to great trouble to make submissions, at a personal cost, including financially, and they do their best. It is always a case of David and Goliath. It has been recognised by the courts that there is a trinity involved always: the community or residents; the developer; and the local authority or planning authority. We must really stop blaming people who take the trouble to make submissions.

Having said that, and as pointed out, a substantial amount of the major Act of a few months ago has not been commenced, yet there is a need to amend it, among other things, to ensure that updated housing requirements in the revised national planning framework can be quickly incorporated into the planning system and to provide certainty that this may lawfully occur under the 2000 Act, which is 25 years old and which we were supposed to have amended or repealed. We are doing all that because we have not rolled out the Planning and Development Act 2024. I do not have the words to describe this but believe it is a subject for “Callan’s Kicks” or for somebody with a sense of humour and irony that we are now amending an Act that has not been commenced. There is really no explanation given for this. We have transitional measures, which I agree with, to facilitate the variation of development plans and local area plans that were commenced under the Act of 25 years ago so they may continue, even when the relevant sections of that Act have not been commenced in the new Act. I repeat that because it is so Kafkaesque. We need to do this to offer “continuity, legal certainty, and operational flexibility”. That was the purpose of the 2024 Act.

The suspension of the running of duration of planning permissions until judicial reviews are complete is a practical suggestion and I do not have a difficulty with it; however, I do have a difficulty with a certain narrative of a man whose name I forget, but who I believe is the chair of the infrastructure committee and whom I mentioned before in the Dáil, that objectors are running down to the courts for judicial reviews. The Government has given absolutely no evidence anywhere of that. I am going to go back to the figures given in the Bill digest on the tiny amount of the planning permissions that sit unactivated. This is certainly not caused by judicial reviews. If the Government is going to air the narrative in every interview and everywhere else, it has a duty to give evidence and facts to show the number of judicial reviews. That I would have no difficulty with.

I do have a difficulty with the extension of housing permissions that would otherwise lapse or that have not yet commenced although they are near the end of their durations. They are going to get an extension of up to three years. One must apply within a six-month period of the legislation commencing, which I welcome, although we have no idea when this Bill, when it becomes law, will be commenced. Then one has to start within 18 months. Presumably, that is to ensure developers do not sit on undeveloped land for an extended period so it will increase in value.

Nobody has asked why permissions have not been acted on up to now. Nowhere in a paper do I see it set out, except in the case of the few subjected to judicial review. There are thousands but in the scheme of the planning permission numbers overall, which I will come back to, the proportion is lower than 10%, I gather. We hear phrases like “financial obstacles” and “the rising cost of materials” but I really would have liked the obstacles to acting upon planning permissions to have been set out. They are nowhere. I just see references to judicial reviews over and over. The purpose of pre-legislative scrutiny is to set all this out.

I do not see a breakdown of the judicial reviews by county. I would love to know how many were taken in Galway county and city and how many planning permissions are sitting there because of judicial review or simply because developers are sitting on the land and waiting for things to change. We heard an announcement recently that the apartments will be reduced in size. I cannot think of anything more obscene. We have learned nothing if we think it is okay to reduce the size of an apartment.

I pay tribute to assistant Professor Orla Hegarty, who, as a public servant, clearly articulated on “Morning Ireland” that the Government proposal would not lead to a reduction in the cost of apartments. She went on to say how costs could be reduced and listed various ways, one of which was to pay builders a monthly salary to build houses. This was one of the many good suggestions she made. It contrasts with having developer-led development all the time.

Let me refer to figures on page 16 of the Bill digest. Maybe the Government will come back with different figures. The digest states:

More than 50,000 apartments in Dublin [Notice it is not the rest of the country] have planning permission but have not commenced construction. Of the 82,700 homes permitted citywide, over two-thirds remain inactive.

Could I have the attention of the Minister and Minister of State for a little while? The digest goes on to state, “While approximately 7,500 units are affected by judicial review, the majority, nearly 50,000, are stalled for other reasons.” There is absolutely no elaboration on those other reasons. I have read all the Minister’s press releases and what he said about judicial reviews. Some of what he said was okay and I accept it to a point, but no reasons have been given for the failure to activate all the planning permissions not related to judicial reviews. Now the Minister is going to make it easier for developers to sit on land. Rather than resourcing local authorities, the Taoiseach is coming out condemning them. I certainly have been critical of them, particularly in Galway, but they were stopped from building housing back in 2009. When we got our quarterly report, it stated construction was suspended. It remained suspended until 2020 and we are going to blame local authorities for that.

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