Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

I do not know if the Minister is a cinema fan, but he may at one point in his life have seen Terry Gilliam’s futuristic sci-fi movie “Brazil”. Having listened to the Minister's speech and having read the notes twice before and watched back his interaction with the committee - I was sick last week so I could not attend - it is a little bit like something from the movie, which means that I have no idea what he just said. I am going to be very honest with him. This is not to challenge it; we are not opposing this proposition in front of us. However, there is a need when we are making important changes to law that we should at least try to explain them in plain English. I have some questions, which the Minister might an opportunity to respond to at the end if he could to help enlighten us and the public.

First of all, if I can put part of what he just said into plain English, as my colleague, Deputy Gould, confirmed with the Minister at committee last week, the Minister is using secondary legislation to change primary legislation. He is entitled to do so. It is set out in the Act. He has given a number of other examples. However, I do think it is very important that the public is clear that what is happening both in committee last week and here today is that we are using secondary legislation to change, albeit in a very minor way, primary legislation. That might not be legally problematic, but it is unusual. It is important that we do acknowledge the fact that it is unusual. I have been a TD for a decade. We have dealt with huge volumes of planning legislation, and it is an operation that I have never seen used before. I just want to put that on the record.

Obviously, the primary purpose of this change, as the Minister said, concerns the operative date for one of the transitional mechanisms governing county development plans and local area plans moving from the old Act into the new Act. The bit I do not understand, and I am genuinely asking the Minister to explain this in his concluding remarks, is what is the value? What do we get by changing that date? I am not questioning or challenging it. I have no reason to oppose what is in front of us. However, I do think a plain English explanation of what the benefit of this change is to the local authority in question or, indeed, to the process of material alterations to development plans that the Minister has requested and with respect to the new housing targets and zoning requirements would be very useful.

It is interesting that there is a Dáil debate and, again, this is a new procedure. In the Minister's concluding remarks, it would be useful to know why. Typically, when we deal with, for example, exempted development regulations in planning, there is a motion for it to go to committee, the committee scrutinises it and then unless there is something very controversial, the matter is just dealt as a matter of course by way of a motion without debate. Again, I am not at all suggesting that we should not have this discussion. I am just interested to understand the procedure.

The most significant thing I would like the Minister to address is about when he wrote to the local authorities at the very end of July and set out both the new housing needs demand assessment targets as well as the increased 50% headroom he is requesting.

I am interested to know whether, in any way, what is here in front of us will impact or assist the local authorities in this process. In his opening remarks, and when the Minister spoke to the committee, he seemed to suggest there is some relationship but I just do not understand. It is not at all clear to me and if the Minister would explain this, it would be exceptionally helpful.

What I will say, and this is a more general comment, is that we were told by the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, that the planning and development Bill and then Act of 2024, on which myself and Deputy Richard O'Donoghue spent enormous volumes of our lives over two years, would be a once in a generation piece of planning reform. We were told the planning system would be clarified, consolidated and streamlined and then we were going to leave it alone and we were going to get away from the practice of month after month and year after year coming back and making more changes. It seems, on the basis of recent announcements from Government, this is less likely. Having said that, we are not opposing what is in front of us but we urge the Minister to provide in his concluding remarks plain English explanations to some of the questions I have asked.

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