Results 3,861-3,880 of 15,009 for speaker:Eoin Ó Broin

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Will the Minister of State explain his point?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: We are not talking about the larger local authorities that have agreed their new development plans but about the small number that have yet to do so.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Instead of completing the development plan review they have under way and into which they put blood, sweat and tears, their existing plans would be extended and their new plans would form the first generation of the ten-year plans. Is that correct?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Let us take Donegal and Sligo, for example. If their plans are coming to an end and they have reviews under way but those reviews are not going to be completed before the enactment of the relevant sections of the new Bill, those plans will be extended. I have two questions.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I have not got to the questions yet. What is the process by which such an extension would take place? Do local authority members or the manager request an extension? That is the first question.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: It is a two-part question. First, what is the process? The amendment does not say. Second, there are legal and EU environmental obligations as regards strategic environmental assessments and the Aarhus Convention. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan mentioned public participation. If these plans are to be extended, not only is it not clear from the amendment what the process is, who requests that...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Does that include requirements under the relative directives on public participation and Aarhus compliance?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: On the first part of my question, there is no mention of the local authority, elected members or the manager or chief executive. Is this something a Minister could impose unilaterally on those local authorities? Is that the intention? Clearly, local authorities will be talking about it. Is there to be dialogue?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: They had a different view when they came in for prelegislative scrutiny of this Bill but we will tackle that when we get to their sections.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Waterford City and County Council's plan is the only one I know to have been extended. Did the local authority request that extension? Was it negotiated when the two local authorities were being merged?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Has there been discussion with the local authorities that will potentially fall under this provision? Their development plan reviews are likely to be at an advanced stage. Do they know this is the intention? I would imagine that this would have a very significant impact on the workforce allocation of a director of planning services. The elected members and wider public are putting a lot...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: We had better adjourn to give everyone, particularly the secretariat and the officials, a bit of a brain break.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: We will have a Minster, will we not?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: The specific question is not whether it does or does not have to comply. We know it has to comply, likewise with Aarhus. The question is how it will comply. Before the Minister of State came in, one of the questions I asked was how the provision in this amendment and in a previous amendment is actually enacted – given effect. It is the same. How will those things be triggered?...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: On both the Aarhus on the SEA obligations.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I did not get clarification. This was not in respect of amendment No. 188; rather, it was with respect to the extension of the development plans. One of the officials helpfully explained it to me outside, and I am a bit clearer on it now. However, in the context of it being not necessary now but at a later stage, I would be interested in the process by which that would be triggered. Is it...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: The response is very disappointing. We should not even have to table these amendments. For me the real contradiction is if you look at the Government and the Department there has been quite a sensible use of Irish language names, particularly for schemes or agencies that are front-facing. Deputy Ó Snodaigh made a point about the Croí Cónaithe scheme. For those of us who are...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I appreciate that, particularly in the cut and thrust of a debate. In some of the discussions we had earlier, we came across drafting weaknesses or errors that require that they go back to the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. I do not, though, understand why it would be necessary to do it in this instance, in the sense that the Minister of State either accepts the principle that the...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: It is a different matter if it concerns legislative crafting of language or sentences to have a particular legislative impact.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (13 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Great, and the more, the better.