Results 1,061-1,080 of 15,002 for speaker:Eoin Ó Broin

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: On the substantive issues, it could be a reflection on our inability to persuade the Minister or of the fact that he is not as open to persuasion as he says and that he has his mind broadly made up at the start. Let me try to persuade him a little in response to his comments. I absolutely accept that the buck stops with the Minister for legislation and policy on planning matters. No one...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: I will not name anybody or any local authority. The Chairman should not worry. I am just making the point that being in the public eye does not necessarily produce good quality outcomes in terms of planning decisions. The Central Bank is a good example of a regulator that is publicly known and the interventions of which lead to good public debate, but we should also look at the...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: I fully support the amendments and I can second them if that is required.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: Those are very weak arguments. With respect to climate change, I welcome the provision depending on the outcome of the Minister's deliberations. We are in significant non-compliance with a number of very important EU environmental directives. We have until 16 May to transpose the 2014 EIA directive and unless the Minister is telling us today that it will happen, we will have a difficulty...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: What I am saying is the Minister could accept Deputy Eamon Ryan's amendments, given their importance, to give himself an additional power to update the list by way of regulations, if that is what he is concerned about. The crucial point is that we are in serious non-compliance with some of the key directives and I believe naming them in legislation would be good.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: I move amendment No. 23:In page 22, line 23, to delete “and assess, at least at a strategic level” and substitute “, assess and where appropriate make legally binding determinations”. As amendments Nos. 23 to 45, inclusive, have been substantively discussed, I intend to withdraw them. However, I wish first to make a point about amendment No. 49 and to hear the...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: I could have misread the section. Does that mean that, for example, members of the public or whistleblowers within planning authorities have the facility to make such complaints?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: That is fine.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: The Minister's answer is fine. I am happy to withdraw amendments Nos. 23, 31, 34, 35, 38, 45 and 49.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: I have a question. In section 4, page 13, 31W relates to the appointment of the planning regulator. Is it the Minister's intention to follow a similar procedure with the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, or An Bord Pleanála, for example, or has he designed that yet? Obviously, it is quite broad with regard to the Minister's power to appoint the regulator. Can the Minister give...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: It is 31W in section 4.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: I thank the Minister for that. My understanding is that for example with the EPA, An Bord Pleanála or the Aquaculture Licences Appeals Board there is a public call but the panel that provides the shortlist to the Minister is made up of sectoral interests. Sectoral interests is probably the wrong phrase; perhaps I should say people who have expertise in the area in question. In the...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: That could never happen in a modern liberal democracy.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: As a former resident of the good borough, I am not sure about that. I support Deputy Ryan. We debated this issue at length in respect of the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill and during Private Members' business. I was worried when I heard the Minister talk about setting minimum standards which he could not go below, which I firmly accept, and which he could...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: I do not believe I am. Neither am I misinterpreting the intention of the legislation, which Deputy Ryan referred to and which we have raised previously. Local authorities should be prevented from going below a certain minimum standard of acceptability. That is absolutely a function of the Government. However, where they are trying to improve, whether that is energy efficiency, the carbon...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: I do not think anything the Minister has just said contradicts my interpretation of how he phrased it the first time. It was Deputy Alan Kelly who introduced the legislation. Essentially, the Minister has set a minimum standard which is also a ceiling. In respect of the apartment sizes in Dublin City Council, he has just said that the minimum is also the ceiling. It is a standard below...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: As a regulation. I would ask the Minister to consider the following: the existing minimum standards do not guarantee affordability, as we see in all the other local authorities. Where there are cost implications to increasing standards at regulatory level, for example in a city or county development plan, there are other ways of addressing those implications. The Minister's Department and...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: Overdue.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: With regard to my amendments Nos. 96 and 98, I am happy not to press amendment No. 96. I do have a concern that the wording as we agreed last year is not as clear as the Minister thinks. I ask that the officials look at the wording that is in the Act at present regarding the 100 units. I still think there is some uncertainty about it. If people could look at it, they could come back and...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016: Committee Stage (12 Apr 2017)

Eoin Ó Broin: That is fine. With regard to amendment No. 98, I have a real concern that the section that I seek to remove could be used by developers to hoard land and not to develop it until property prices are at a higher level. What they could do is have live planning permissions and deliberately not develop them even though they have the resources to do so, clearly knowing that they have a fast track...