Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)

I welcome the Bill. It makes good, necessary adjustments. It reflects some of the responsiveness to what has been a frustrating planning environment but we need to be clear that the issue is not primarily judicial review. I have been listening to every Member. There are so many good ideas in the House but we need the planning law that we are making now to drive delivery, not only manage delay.

I acknowledge that the Bill provides clarity on permissions under the 2000 and 2024 Acts and how they interact, and it gives temporary breathing room for inactivated permissions. It also rightly acknowledges that some permissions are caught up but Members across the House have spoken about how it is ridiculous that someone in Galway can object to developments in Dublin. It is also hilarious how some Members talk about the housing crisis, yet when you look at their record, they are consistently objecting to housing developments in their own constituencies. Talk about talking out of both sides of their mouth. However, all that is fine. There are real legal snags that deserve attention. We are talking about the marginal fixes.

I really want to comment on how planning law is out of sync with reality. I have mentioned in the House and spoken to the Minister previously about the funding of the Housing Finance Agency and how it only meets once a month. I urge him to look into that. Developers who are waiting for sign-off on developments are losing money. Foreigners want to invest in Ireland but how can they take us seriously when the HFA is only meeting once a month? It is a huge bottleneck, but it is losing developers money, which will, in turn, lose developments and slow up delivery.

Across Dublin Bay North, we have land zoned, permission granted and development stalled. The Minister himself knows - both the local authorities, Dublin City Council, DCC, and Fingal, have spoken to me about this - where permissions exists the timelines are too weak and too many developers are sitting the land banks waiting for prices to rise. It is not doing any public good.

Something else I have spoken about previously is the vacant and derelict sites register. It is understaffed in Dublin. We have hundreds of houses boarded up. I have young mothers with children coming to me and right around the corner are houses that are boarded up. One of them gave me her permission. Carla Keegan is waiting there with her two children as a house down the road is there for a year boarded up. DCC and all the local authorities across Ireland need the vacant and derelict sites register to be enforced with more staff members and have key targets because sometimes, as Deputy McGrath mentioned, people who are not elected in these roles are not held accountable and then it is politicians who take the brunt of the public's rage when they do not have key targets for their workforce. I would like the Minister to put in key targets for civil servants.

I have mentioned the issue of private wires and how they would really help hundreds of times. The Minister knows himself that it is one of the most practical and urgent structural changes. Previous speakers have talked about water and electricity. New apartment developments of 300 units require 300 separate connections but if we can bring in private wires, not anything huge but under 5 MW, for developers to have one connection for those apartments, it would speed up the development. One key element is that, when built, they are owned by the residents.

Before I go off on a rant on this, I refer to the news that the Minister gave about the modular homes. Is it still to be the case that modular homes will be only for direct family members? If it is, I urge the him to look again at that. If people have room to build a modular home in the back of their garden, why should that only be for a family member when there is someone up or down the road who could help his or her son or there is a student coming here? We are trying to put as much possible in. I urge the Minister to look at that. It would really help and it would be the most beneficial. I do not understand why we limit modular builds to direct family members. It makes no sense.

I support the Bill. It is a part of wider reform. I welcome the engagement the Minister has had with me so far. I want to see him bring forward stronger measures to force activation, strengthen local authority capacity to get stuff done, and put delivery first.

We had a group in the audiovisual room today talking about building above shops. As I am a Dublin TD, I need to quickly mention this in the last ten seconds. The infrastructure is already there. We do not need private wires or more water connections. They already have connections underneath in the shops. If the Minister can bring in reform that would help above-shop development, it would really help.

See this speech in context