Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

I move amendment No. 16:

In page 14, after line 18, to insert the following:

“Report on planning permissions and residential units 18. Within three months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a report detailing the number of planning permissions and residential units to which section 14 of this Act may apply and making recommendations on how to ensure that extensions of duration of planning permissions are only granted where the development is likely to commence and not where the extension is being sought for speculative purposes.”.

For the sake of time, I want to deal specifically with the request for the report on the extensions. The Minister has heard a lot from this side of the House this evening about the concern that, while some people will avail of the extension of duration for very valid reasons and build out their developments or infrastructure, others may not. There needs to be some reporting mechanism. As we know from the artificial spikes in commencement certificates in April and September last year to avail of the development levy and water connection waiver, commencement notices are not in and of themselves sufficient and, therefore, amendment No. 17 seeks to place a reporting requirement on the Minister and his officials to produce a report every six months to list the number of developments that have sought and secured the extension but also to track a substantial commencement and completion.

While I appreciate the Minister will not accept the amendment, we need a reporting mechanism. We need some mechanism for the Minister to ensure this facility, which is a very significant one, is utilised for the intended purpose. For the purposes of transparency, not only for the Oireachtas but for the wider public and the planning system, some reporting mechanism will be required. While I do not expect the Minister to support the amendment, I ask him to talk to his officials to see whether there is some mechanism by which he could report and publish on the website something that allows us to track this so that the very genuine concerns we have around misuse of this provision can be addressed. If there is no abuse, then everybody is happy and the system is working well. However, if there clearly is some evidence of abuse, then action can be taken to address it.

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