Results 2,301-2,320 of 6,937 for speaker:Cian O'Callaghan

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: I will wait a moment as the Minister is in conversation with his officials.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: I thank the Minister. I will speak to those amendments. Amendment No. 440, for example, is about the notice of intention to review a development plan in preparation of a development plan. Other amendments relate to making a development plan and variation of a development plan and concern the correspondence to be sent and discussed. I am seeking to update the language in the Bill such that...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: I appreciate the Minister’s response but the legislation is quite prescriptive as it is and this is not covered in regulations. It is quite clear. Planning authority should give a copy of a notice under subsection (12) and then lists who gets it. My amendments are trying to make sure the prescriptive legislation is effectively correct in it prescribes-----

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: My amendments are Nos. 368, 894 and 899. Amendment No. 894 is about housing strategy. It seeks to ensure that housing strategy in Gaeltacht communities would have regard to the need to protect the cultural and linguistic heritage of the Irish language in the Gaeltacht communities. It is an absolute disaster in terms of planning when we have a physiotherapist living out of a van in a...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: I will come in on my amendments Nos. 343, 351 and 385. I will start on amendment No. 385 because it is almost similar to the ones we were discussing. This is an amendment to delete the wording on Gaeltacht areas and replace it with more up-to-date language reflecting Acht na Gaeltachta, 2012, which sets out the structure for the language planning process and redefines the Gaeltacht as was...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: Specifically on amendment No. 351, in my name and related to the obligation to prepare a strategy on economic development, the Minister has referred us to the obligation to prepare a strategy related to the creation, improvement and preservation of sustainable places and communities. Section 46(2)(b), which refers to the protection of the linguistic and cultural heritage, including the...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: I appreciate that every area will have an economic development but the point is that for the Gaeltacht areas to thrive, the economic development plan for the whole local authority area will need to take into account the needs of that Gaeltacht community in respect of protection of the language and linguistical cultural heritage. That is not arguing for a piecemeal approach or anything like...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: To clarify, I have not discussed amendment No. 390. Was it included in one of the groups the Ministers put forward? Perhaps I missed it.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: I know. I am indicating to the Chair that after speaking to amendment No. 430, I wish to speak to amendment No. 390.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: We will deal with amendment No. 430 first.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: Amendment No. 430 concerns consultation with the Office of the Planning Regulator before preparation of a development plan. There are wider issues in that regard we will discuss elsewhere. I have concerns about those provisions in the Bill. However, specifically on amendment No. 430, it simply seeks that development plans be consistent with language plans, as we discussed. We have gone...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: Amendment No. 390 outlines a specific Gaeltacht housing and population strategy as necessary to tackle the Gaeltacht housing emergency, and that population housing objectives for the Gaeltacht need to be identified to ensure that these communities thrive. It is to insert an obligation to prepare Gaeltacht housing population development strategies, where the planning authority's functional...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: No. I want to come in just on amendment No. 390.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: Sorry. Yes, I had been looking to come in on amendment No. 30. I have been looking to come in for a while on amendment No. 390 while this is being discussed. I absolutely hear what the Minister says about the priority area plans, but our amendment No. 390 does not advocate a one-size-fits-all approach. It is absolutely appropriate to a planning Bill to put in a provision that there will...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: I want to ask about that because this is a change. An awful lot of the text in this consolidated Bill is taken from the 2000 Act consolidating and updating it. In respect of a table like this, one would expect it to be updated so obviously a conscious decision has been taken somewhere not to follow the approach. Will the Minister give us the rationale for why the decision has been taken to...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: To add to that, we have been given different rationales for the Bill, but one of the overall ones is the provision of a consolidated Bill that has clarity and is user-friendly such that practitioners or people engaged in the planning process can pick it up and find the areas they are looking for through the different sections at the front. To be fair, while it is a long Bill it does that, so...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: On my amendment, if the Minister was willing to accept the table and wanted to create greater clarity and wanted to put in the directive numbers where they have not been listed I would be happy with that. It would not be an issue. Looking at it though, the ones where the directive numbers are not listed are the very well-known directives like the habitats directive and the birds directive....

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: So if the table gave that information as to what parts of the Bill the directive was giving effect to, according to the Attorney General's advice that would be fine.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2024)

Cian O'Callaghan: That is fair enough. It is just that as we have drilled into that, the issues that have been raised by the Attorney General could actually be dealt with. We could have that table and it could have that information about what parts of the Bill-----