Results 4,341-4,360 of 15,697 for speaker:Eoin Ó Broin

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Given that the schedule for the publication of the Bill was greatly delayed - this is no criticism of any officials because it is not the officials' fault - I suspect that if we get a copy of the enactment schedule, I will be reminding the Minister of State, if he is still in government in a year or two years' time, of the delays in meeting that. Nevertheless, given that there is going to be...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: We have amendments to this section in this cluster that the Minister of State has not spoken to.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: National policy objective No. 29 in the national planning framework is to, "Support the implementation of language plans in Gaeltacht Language Planning Areas, Gaeltacht Service Towns and Irish Language Networks." That is a statutory obligation on our planning system and our local authorities. The problem is that nowhere in this Bill is it set out how this should be done. It is remarkable...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I apologise for interrupting but I want to make an important point.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: It does not answer the question I asked.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Yes, but it does not address the question I asked: in those areas, does the desire to use the language on a day-to-day basis constitute social need? In my development plan, for example - other Deputies will know this - when you apply for a new house in a countryside area, you have to demonstrate an economic need to actually live in that physical area or a social need. Economic need is much...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: My point is that in any planning application the planning authority has to assess a range of factors. I get that.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: My point is to ascertain whether it is the position of the Government. What the Minister of State has just read out from the development plan is-----

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Absolutely. It was given to many local authorities after they had got halfway through completing their development plan review, but that is a separate issue. Does social need in a Gaeltacht include use of the language or desire to live in an area where the language is spoken? That is a pretty straightforward question. I think the answer is that the Minister of State does not know because...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: That does not answer the question but I do not want to hog people's time.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Will it provide clarity on whether use of the language can be considered as a social need? It appears that the officials have literally no answer to this.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I am not asking for it to be the only consideration.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: There is some good practice there currently. It is important to say that. There is also an absolute lack of it in other areas. It is the lack of consistency that is a huge problem.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: The Minister of State spoke to the first cluster of amendments, but there is a second series of clusters within this grouping and it is about half the amendments, so we have only dealt with about half the amendments in this grouping.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: It depends on the quality of the Minister of State's responses. I do not know, Chair, is the short answer.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Sure, no problem.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: The issue is that the Minister of State in his opening statement went through the first group of his subgroups. He now has to go through his next group of subgroups and then we can respond to those.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I am not sure it is agreeable but I would say that we can proceed on that basis.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 Feb 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: It was with a wry smile that I greeted the Minister of State's comments on how some of our amendments would not be acceptable because there is no capacity to cope with them in the planning system. If that were a rule for not including things in the Bill, very significant sections of the Minister of State's own portions of the Bill would be ruled out, because there are currently no resources...