James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I move:

That Dáil Éireann approves the following Regulations in draft: Planning and Development Act 2024 (Modification) Regulations 2025, a copy of which has been laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on 18th November, 2025.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the draft regulations and set out the rationale and reasoning behind their development. First, I wish to take this opportunity to provide a brief update on the ongoing phased commencement of the Act of 2024. As Deputies will be aware, the Act of 2024 represents the most comprehensive review of planning legislation since 2000 and spearheads the ongoing reform and streamlining of the planning system without there being reduced delays in housing development and other critical infrastructure projects.

The commencement of the substantive planning provisions of the Act of 2024 began on 9 June 2025. Both Chapters 1 and 2 of Part 22 came into operation providing for the identification of suitable sites for urban development zones. On 18 June 2025, the commencement of Part 17 was completed, which provided for the establishment for An Coimisiún Pleanála, and on 1 August 2025, Chapter 1 of Part 9 was commenced, which introduced provisions for reformed planning during judicial review alongside section 180 to provide for the suspension of the duration of a planning permission during judicial review proceedings. On 2 October 2025, Chapters 1 to 4 of Part 3 were commenced and provided the new legislative basis for the national planning framework and regional and spatial economic strategies, as well as introducing the national planning statements that will be used to set up policy and provide guidance in relation to planning matters.

As things stand, 133 sections of the Act of 2024 have now been brought fully into operation and that means almost 50% more legislation has now been brought into effect from the first year of the Act of 2024 compared to the first year of the implementation of the Planning and Development Act 2000. The next groups of provisions will be brought into operation at the end of this month at which point more legislation will have been commenced under the Act of 2024 than was contained in the entire 2000 planning Act after its enactment on 28 August 2000.

To follow on from the good progress that has been made this year, as we move into 2026, the third phase of commencement is set to proceed. This will provide for a range of important provisions, such as development consents, architectural heritage and enforcement matters. Going back to the proposed regulations, it is important to highlight that the ongoing phased commencement of the Act of 2024 and the corresponding repeal of the 2000 planning Act is a complex task and one that must continue to be responsive to Government policy and to stakeholder needs.

Subsequent to this is a revision of the national planning framework in April this year. Housing growth requirement guidelines were issued to local authorities that set out the housing demand scenario in the State up to the year 2040. These guidelines translated the national planning framework housing requirements into estimated average annual figures for each local authority. While it was originally intended to bring all of Part 3 of the Act of 2024 into operation in October this year to complete the new legislative foundation for development plans and area plans, upon discussions with stakeholders and local authority representatives, the decision was made to stagger the commencement of Part 3 to help facilitate the urgent variation of development plans using the familiar processes and provisions of the 2000 planning Act. This was done for the single purpose of implementing the housing growth requirement guidelines as expeditiously as possible.

As a result, some of Part 3 was commenced in October, while the rest of Part 3 will come into operation at the end of this month. The proposed regulations are, therefore, necessary in order to change the operative date from October to December for a transitional provision relating to development plans variations that were initiated under the 2000 planning Act. They make a technical and straightforward modification to section 69(2) of the Act of 2024 to align the transitional provisions with the commencement of the development plan provisions under the Act of 2024.

The proposed regulations also make a similar modification to section 81 of the Act of 2024 with respect to the making and amending of local area plans. While the proposed regulations are technical in nature, they are an important component of the wider commencement process for the Act of 2024. I would like to give assurance to the House regarding the application of the specific legislative provision under which the proposed regulations are to be made, if approved, and to draw attention to the inherent safeguards that are provided for in that enabling provision.

Section 4(6) of the Act of 2024 allows the Minister of the day to make regulations to remove a difficulty that arises with respect to bringing a provision of the Act of 2024 into operation. In relation to the operation of any such provision, such regulations may modify the provision in question insofar as it may be necessary or expedient to carry such provision into effect.

In the case of proposed regulations, necessary modifications are required to remove a difficulty that prevents bringing subsection (2) of section 69 and subsection (6A) of section 81 into operation in the intended manner. For further safeguard use of subsection (6) of section 4, following constructive discussion on Committee Stage, an additional requirement was inserted into the Planning and Development Bill 2023 that will ensure a positive resolution of both Houses of the Oireachtas was required before any draft regulations could be signed by the Minister. That additional safeguard is the reason we are here tonight. I see this as a prudent and sensible step in the process of enabling modifications to be made to the Act of 2024 in order to bring it into operation in the manner intended. It is also important to note that this enabling provision should not be considered pioneering or innovative, nor is the use of such a provision. Similar provisions are already found across the Statute Book empowering the Minister of the day to introduce necessary regulations to remove a difficulty with respect to the bringing into operation of a legislative provision. Examples of where such power have been used include section 2(2) of the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2024 and section 3 of the Non-Use of Motor Vehicles Act 2013.

To conclude, the purpose of the proposed regulations is to facilitate measures that are being undertaken to assist in the provision of additional zoned land for residential development. I commend our proposed regulations to the House. Finally, if the proposed regulations are approved by positive resolution of both Houses of the Oireachtas, as required under section 4 of the Act of 2024, the intention is to have the regulations signed into law at the earliest opportunity to prepare for the commencement of Chapters 5 and 6 of Part 2 of the Act of 2024.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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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.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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At last week's housing committee I asked the Minister whether this Bill would lead to more homes being delivered, and he could not give me a straight answer on that or on why he was bringing these regulations forward. Is this more developer-led lobbyist-influenced policy or is it simply that there are problems that should not be there and now the Minister is trying to fix them?

To give the Minister a feel of things, there was an article in The Irish Times the other day by Sarah Burns about ten houses in Carrignavar that have been empty for 15 years. I have raised this in the Dáil and at the housing committee. The reason for this is that Irish Water cannot connect them to wastewater facilities. The Minister needs to be doing the things that need to be done and delivering housing, especially houses that are built. It is just not in Carrignavar but right across the State that there are houses that have been built that should be delivered. I raised with the Minister in the housing committee last week the thousands of boarded-up council houses right across the State. I asked him a straight question and, to be fair, he gave me a straight answer. It was the wrong answer but at least he was honest about it. He said he was giving no extra funding for local authorities for the boarded-up voids. He said it was a local authority issue.

Last Friday, the homeless figures came out and they were horrendous. We do not have the ability right here and now to solve the homelessness crisis but what the Minister does have the ability to do now is to fix long-term family homelessness, if he was willing to fund local authorities. There are children going into their third Christmas in emergency accommodation and the Minister has this in his power. The Minister and the Government have said they will look to end long-term homelessness by 2030. Is the Minister willing to give a commitment that if he and the Government do not do this by 2030 that he will step down as Minister? This Government made promise after promise that we knew on this side of the House were wrong and that could not be delivered. We told Darragh O'Brien, Eoghan Murphy and Simon Coveney they were wrong but we were told, no, we were wrong and they were right. Well, here we are now with the highest homeless figures in the history of the State, the highest number of homeless families and the highest number of homeless children, the highest house prices, the highest rents and the highest number of people on the social housing list. Who is wrong? We told the Government it was wrong and it is still saying it is right. Every figure in the book tells it that it is wrong. What will it take for it to admit it? I am asking the Minister a straight question and I am looking for a straight answer, and that is about the one thing the Minister can do. If the Government does not end long-term homelessness by 2030, will the Minister and this Government resign?

Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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As far as I understand it, the position at the moment is that the 2000 Act is still partly in force and the 2024 Act is only partially commenced. My understanding of this is that section 4(6) of the 2024 Act allows the Minister, by regulation, to modify any provision of the Act if there is a difficulty with bringing it into operation. Such regulations cannot be made more than three years after the relevant provision has come into operation. The unspoken assumption is that problems can only be identified in the process of bedding down a new law.

Sections 69 and 81 are both transitional provisions as far as I understand it. Section 69 states that if notice were given of the preparation of a development plan before Part 2 of the 2000 Act was repealed then that Part would continue to apply. Section 81 provided for the continuation in force of local area plans made under the 2000 Act for their stated period. Sections 69 and 81 were both deleted and replaced by provisions in the 2025 Act, which largely consisted of technical amendments. The two substitute provisions both refer to the continuing effectiveness of things done before the repeal of Part 2 of the 2000 Act. I am trying to work this out in my own head. Perhaps it has occurred to the Minister that Part 2 should not be repealed all at once, and he wants to replace a reference to things done before the repeal of Part 2 with a reference to things done before the repeal of a particular section of this Part.

It seems the Minister wants to modify not the original wording of the 2000 Act, to which, arguably, the enabling section 4(6) was intended to be confined, but to use secondary legislation to modify later wording inserted into the Act of 2025. It seems to be a bit of a stretch to argue that an uncommenced provision can be amended by legislation and then the legislation, as amended, can be overridden.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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To echo what my colleague has said, there is a need for a very clear plain language explanation of what is the rationale behind these changes. I was at the committee last week and while there is clearly a need to make changes they need to be explained. It is very frustrating for us as new TDs to come in here when we had heard from the previous Government, which the Minister was part of, that essentially the biggest piece of work on planning in decades and decades, possibly since the foundation of the State, had been done, and yet here we are now, back again, making changes that are opaque and unclear. What is the outcome going to be?

Fianna Fáil has been in control of the Ministry of housing since 2020. We are now six years in, and there are still planning issues that have not been dealt with, and I know there are more coming down the line. What it says to me is that Fianna Fáil has not taken this seriously. Neither has Fine Gael. They have not got on top of it. I read through the infrastructure plan released today and at least it had the honesty of saying that at least six of the 12 biggest barriers and blockages to the delivery of infrastructure are down to the Government itself, the State itself and how they operate, including slow processes, slow approvals and funding uncertainty. What we need to hear is what change these regulations are going to make, and particularly around the issue of land that will be zoned, as I have raised with the Minister before.

We are going to zone more land for housing development but there are already significant amounts of zoned land across the country. We have 80,000 planning permissions that are not being built. The issue is not lack of zoning; it is the lack of development led by the State. We are going to inflate land prices, lead to speculation and ultimately come back to the housing needs and demands assessment, having excluded the half a million people stuck in their childhood bedrooms. Are they going to be included in the new housing needs and demand assessment? Is their housing need going to be included, and is the need of all those in hidden homelessness going to be included? These are the questions that need to be answered on this.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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It is the greatest cod that judicial reviews are what is delaying the development of housing and planning in this country. It is also the height of hypocrisy because we all know, when we go to community meetings where residents are up in arms over some development, the Minister's own party members will also be there giving it loads.

I attended meetings before the election. If the Minister recalls the other planning changes that were made, many developments went straight to An Bord Pleanála at the time rather than going to the local authorities, and people did not realise their local planning officials had maybe more of a connection on the ground. Now, there is this thing about judicial reviews. There are two facts. Lorcan Sirr, the housing analyst, has made it clear that only 0.22% of planning applications ever go to judicial review. It is double figures in one year for so many developments. It is not the cause of the problem. The Minister's Government and the previous government are the cause of the problem.

I will give an example of how I oppose any changes being taken to things that give residents power. Sure, we can all cite something that looks really bad that is being delayed. Unfortunately, with any law, you are going to get something you do not like, but in general, these are very important for communities to have a say. At present, I am involved in making a planning appeal to An Coimisiún Pleanála. I will not go into the details but I will mention how difficult it is for people to do that. To get a professional planning consultation, depending on the size of the application, it can be €2,500 plus VAT, for example. To get a traffic study done, it can be the same. That is a hell of a lot of money for a group of residents to raise for something they believe is fundamentally unjust, especially when you are up against a vulture fund that has so much money and power at its disposal to get all the analysts in. It is a David and Goliath battle we are talking about here. We should be very careful about agreeing to any of these changes. It is nearly always working-class communities who suffer the most because they do not have that wherewithal, professional expertise, cultural capital or whatever.

I want to cite the recent example of Blanchardstown Centre, where the owners are trying to introduce parking charges. The centre includes public facilities, such as the council office, the library, the post office and so forth. It is a vulture fund with no connection with the community, with the workers in the shops or even with the other companies there. For example, footfall in Liffey Valley went down dramatically there, loads of jobs were lost and people's hours were slashed. These things drive online shopping. They are not good for communities and, unfortunately, local authorities and so on are using these ludicrous examples of, "Well, you have a great public transport system there. Get out of your car and into the public transport." We are talking about residents being up against big vulture funds and the local authority, and Government is trying to take away even further their right to challenge things. I say this as somebody who does not object to very many developments, but sometimes you have to.

I utterly oppose this and it is being weaponised against the public good, to be frank. These changes the Minister is proposing are taking more and more power away from the small person and communities to object to proposals that are going to impact their lives severely, with no proof or correlation made that it is inhibiting development. We all know many of the developments being objected to tend to be high-rise vulture fund developments that are build to rent right beside, say, two-storey housing or, in the case of Blanchardstown, a vulture fund fleecing workers and the community for greed and nothing else. I am utterly opposed to these changes. Government needs to get on and have its meetings with the local authorities sitting on public land banks that have not been developed for years.

There are two examples. I am very bored saying them and the Minister may be bored listening to them. The first is in Dublin West in Church Fields, which Government is now hailing as being a great development, and I agree it is very good - not perfect but good - but it was socialists in solidarity who highlighted that that land was sitting there during a housing crisis and put a lot of pressure on Fingal to develop it. Similarly, there is another huge land bank up the road in Dunsink, Elm Green, in Scribblestown, which could provide thousands of houses. Government needs to have meetings with councils on those land banks and get them developed because they will be the game changers in the housing crisis, not things like judicial reviews and curbing people's power to object to things that are justifiable to object to.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)
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I said to the Minister earlier that I would pray if somebody would start to listen and I am going to give him a small bit of prayers. This is from the point of view of the part in the Bill that brings in developer-led infrastructure. Why am I so glad that is going to be introduced and that Government is looking at and encouraging this? I will tell you why. When you bring a business model into a development, you can then use the costing of that delivery of infrastructure and put it against the likes of Uisce Éireann and what it is delivering. It creates a competition network where you can actually see how much it is costing, how much it can be delivered for, and look at the likes of Uisce Éireann and ask why it is costing more for it to develop something that is the same. That is what I welcome.

The only way we are going to see ourselves out of a housing crisis is a business model. Accountability for building on budget and on time is the only way. I am in business all my life. I have said it here that I do not do any Government contracts and never have, but I am building all my life and I am accountable for the work we do, for the people who work with me and for their families, and to make sure at the end of the year that the business lasts into the following year. This model is the only way we are going to get out of a housing crisis. It is developer-led infrastructure where the business model is used against our departmental models to show what we can deliver, even on systems where we can come up with a system for even hospital building.

Somebody rang me today to say they are getting a house built by Murphy's New Homes. They can go to a catalogue, pick out the house and they can deliver it cheaper because it is out of a catalogue. It is the same; you pick this house, this house, this house. That is why it is delivery on budget and on time.

Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)
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I suppose any movement is to be welcomed if we are going to make changes that are desperately needed regarding the housing market. We need to support any measure that can do that as long as it is a common-sense issue.

The problem I have is where the changes are going to be made. Sometimes, even before you go ahead anywhere, you have to go back. If you look at the actions of Uisce Éireann, we have waste treatment plants all over the country bursting at the seams and into waters and rivers everywhere. How do we intend to improve there? Those towns, whether it is Dunmanway, Shannonvale, Clonakilty, Ballydehob, Rosscarbery or Gully, to pick a few in west Cork, are pouring raw sewage into the tide and local public parks. There are no extra houses going to be built there, so where is this plan going to work?

Are the planning guidelines going to change for people who want to get one-off planning? I was with someone the other day in this position and mother of God, we spent an hour and a half with the architect. The conditions put on the person were frightening. They wanted to build a lovely little timber, three-bedroom house. It is not going to happen. They were told they could not do certain things and they had to draw up various reports. Before I left, I had figured out that he had already spent €30,000 and had not even a shovel put in the ground yet. We have a real crisis in this country. I know the Minister is trying to improve things. First of all, we need to make these Government bodies accountable to people in some way and accountable to public representatives. I look at the case of Aghadoe, where residents have had 14 bursts in their mains water supply since July. This has resulted in closures in the local crèche, the local school and, obviously, tourism businesses. Not once has the Government shared and come back and said to us that it will try to resolve the issue with us.

Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter. I welcome this amendment in relation to variations of the local development plan. It is a practical step and it shows a level of flexibility regarding planning, which has become increasingly inflexible. While we are discussing this, I ask the Minister to consider allowing local councillors and local authorities more autonomy and more responsibility in relation to development plans and the direction of the areas. Councillors stand for election and are elected by local communities to represent them and provide a vision for their area. Increasingly, the entire local development plan is laden down with rules and bureaucracy and is actually overseen by the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR. I believe this is wrong and is actually stifling development in some areas. There is a housing development on the Killala Road in Ballina that was not allowed to proceed as a result of the housing, or population, ceiling that was built into the local development plan. This development plan and the ceiling were dictated by the OPR. If we were allowed more subsidiarity in relation to this, I think we would not have had that problem in Mayo. I ask the Minister to consider allowing councillors and local authorities more power in relation to development plans.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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Earlier on, I was talking about the fact that all newly development rezoned areas should be SDZs to try to tie in facilities and infrastructure. As regards taking away some community input by fast-tracking the process, I see the need to fast-track the process but we still have to have the input and we still have to allow it in some way. A lot of the times that An Bord Pleanála, now An Coimisiún Pleanála, dragged on were not because of any particular objection, but because the objection process and the planning process would be nine weeks together. People should be able to have their say.

In looking at developments going forward, there needs to be some sort of tie-in with facilities and infrastructure that makes it mandatory on Government agencies and Departments to guarantee that train stations will be open, capacity will be provided, schools will be built and bus routes will actually be planned on the map, ready to go with the NTA, before any housing construction commences. We had a situation where €4 million was spent redeveloping Kishoge train station because it never opened in 2009 as was planned. A car park that was supposed to be put in place ended up being developed instead. This was a complete waste of taxpayers' money, whereas if they had made sure that no house could be built until the train station was open, I guarantee that train station would have been opened straight away.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I am glad to have the opportunity to speak here this evening. There are a few points I would like to make. First of all, I think the Minister is doing a good job. It is a very difficult Department. I think everyone would acknowledge this, including predecessors who have held the position. The Minister has made a good start and I hope he succeeds in all areas that he is seeking to lead out on.

I want to speak about the lack of uniformity in council development plans. I was a county councillor in Clare for 16 years before getting elected to Dáil Éireann. There is a total lack of uniformity in terms of how different counties and jurisdictions classify a local, rural person or a social need. Even the definition of what is a farmer can be different. In some counties, it is enough to have a herd number and to be actively farming, while in others it must make up a majority of the household income. This does not recognise the fact that, in many farm families, one or two people have to go out and work in the PAYE sector or the private environment to supplement income. There is a total lack of uniformity in terms of what policy areas are and there is a lack of uniformity on the definition of ribbon development.

Across the board, I think it would be wonderful to see uniformity brought to all of this. I have often been bemused when I hear people talking about the number of houses that need to be built. If policies were right and the climate was right and development was right, a lot of these houses would not be built on the buck of the Government, so to speak. We would be facilitating people to build one-off rural homes and we would be facilitating developers to build small developments. The Minister has done really good work on developer-led sewerage infrastructure recently. If policy is right, I think a lot of the housing builds itself organically without too much State intervention, so I hope all of that can happen.

I concur with what others have said about developer-led infrastructure. I bought my own home in 2006. At the time, in my small community, there were three housing estates all being finished around the same time. All had show houses and there was a choice. With that, the market was buoyant and people could get a bit of value and could negotiate, but there has been no development there ever since. All developments in 2006 in my area had developer-led sewerage infrastructure. They had what we as local councillors called package treatment plants. The sewage was pumped to a facility in a corner of the site where it was treated. It became a dirty term afterwards. When Irish Water and, indeed, local authorities came into play, they did not want to know about package treatment plants because they were seen as being troublesome. We are nearly 20 years on from that. Infrastructure has moved on light years and I am glad that the Minister made a policy change in that regard in recent weeks.

I have a major concern at the moment. I stood up here in the past month in three different Dáil debates and I flagged that An Coimisiún Pleanála had a huge amount of in-house expertise in planning. Sure, why would it not? It is the supreme authority when it comes to all matters of planning. However, I made the point that it had no in-house expertise whatsoever in the realms of air safety, avionics, radar and all of those things. These are not run-of-the-mill planning matters. Rather, they are really specialised fields. I raised the lack of in-house expertise at An Coimisiún Pleanála with the Minister and the Taoiseach. The Minister, Deputy Chambers, took it another day during questions on promised legislation. The upshot of all of that was around a week and a half after one of my debates here in the Dail, I got a letter from An Coimisiún Pleanála stating that it had hired as an adviser an independent expert on air safety. I am my party's spokesperson on aviation. To my mind, there is only one independent expert on air safety in this country, that is, the Irish Aviation Authority, IAA, on D'Olier Street. That is where the buck stops. It is the regulator that sets the safety standards for Ireland. It is not just the planes that take off from Dublin, Shannon, Cork and Knock. Some 90% of flights between America and Europe pass over Irish airspace each day. They pay money to the State, so there is a dividend for the Government, but overall this is about air safety. The IAA is the only authority. However, An Coimisiún Pleanála flatly ignored the Irish Aviation Authority and hired a consultancy company from Britain named Sagentia Aviation. I am sure Sagentia Aviation has much expertise and is a fine company. However, one can easily find a page on the company's website on which it boasts about having helped over 300 wind farm companies get their planning across the line. I do not know, so I am posing the question rather than accusing. Is a company that boasts about this independent enough to be able to advise our State planning authority on matters relating to air safety and wind turbines next door to radars? Is the company qualified to do that? What due diligence did An Coimisiún Pleanála undertake to hire the company? What has it cost the taxpayer? It is a crying sin when we have a whole five-storey building on D'Olier Street with all of the air safety experts. They have been overlooked to hire a consultancy company in Britain. It is not the Minister's fault but someone from An Coimisiún Pleanála has to answer these questions. I have asked this question in the Dáil and I asked it again in the past week with a letter to An Coimisiún Pleanála, written in anger last Saturday night, and I am still awaiting an answer. It is fundamentally wrong to override the State body that is the supreme power when it comes to air safety. The reason I bring this up is because of the debate that has been going on here all day and all last week about wind energy. That is a debate in its own right.

There is a spectrum of views on that issue in this House. The one thing I can tell Members, and I can share those documents with the Minister, is that the Irish Aviation Authority has said that in general it has no problem with wind energy, but it has a major health and air safety concern when planning permission for wind turbines is applied for in close proximity to primary or secondary radar. The pinging signal from the magnetron goes up, pings off an aircraft and positions it on the screen of air traffic controller. The accuracy of that positioning on screen cannot be guaranteed if there is a 180 m turbine blade spinning in close proximity. It is all very technical, but the IAA has raised a big red flag. It is the supreme authority on air safety. It says that it is not safe. What does An Coimisiún Pleanála do? It overrode this and granted planning permission for one wind farm in east Clare. It has now brought in a consultant from Britain. Something is radically wrong here.

During an earlier debate on housing, I mentioned the damage a €20 objection fee can do. It is like throwing a grenade at a planning application. The application could be for a multimillion euro bridge, bypass, hospital wing or whatever. It could be a major housing scheme that would cost millions of euro to develop, but the damage that a €20 objection can do is immense. During that debate, we were goaded by Deputy Ruth Coppinger. What she did not tell anyone was that during the time she was not in the Dáil, she opposed and objected, with a €20 note, to 211 apartments in Clonsilla. She was slagging off different politicians here earlier. It is wrong to deny 211 people a home for a €20 objection fee. It is fundamentally wrong.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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It depends on what it is.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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It is incongruent with what the Deputy said earlier.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Duine amháin.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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It was all about getting a little TikTok clip for her social media earlier but-----

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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No, it was not.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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-----the Deputy has done huge damage to the housing needs of the people in Dublin West.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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No.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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She has done huge damage and-----

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Duine amháin.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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Should people not have the right to object to any development?

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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In true wild west style-----

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Gabh mo leithscéal, a theachta.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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-----she dropped her grenade and she walked out of the Chamber.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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She objects, and then comes in here giving out about there being no houses.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Duine amháin, go raibh maith agaibh.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The technical regulations before us do a very simple thing.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Gabh mo leithscéal, duine amháin.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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It is usually a Fianna Fáil member who objects.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We are not objecting to houses.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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It is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that object to houses.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Gabh mo leithscéal, duine amháin.

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Coppinger is a serial objector.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Má tá na Teachtaí ag iarraidh gearán nó comhrá a dhéanamh lena chéile, is féidir leo dul amach. Tá an tAire ina sheasamh agus ag críochnú na díospóireachta.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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There was something said that was not true. I am not a serial objector to housing.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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While the regulations before the House are very technical, what we effectively did was allow local authorities to commence variations under the existing 2000 Act as that is what they are familiar with, rather than commence the rest of Part 3 of the 2024 Act. As they have in some cases commenced certain variations, we need to have a transitional measure put in so that those variations that have commenced will not have to be restarted again when the rest of Part 3 of the 2024 Act commences. It is in the interest of the efficiency and effectiveness of our local authorities so that they can do what is necessary in terms of rezoning.

Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)
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Vótáil

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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In accordance with Standing Order 87, as the required number of tellers have not been appointed for the Níl side, I declared the question carried.