Results 2,821-2,840 of 14,941 for speaker:Eoin Ó Broin

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: It was.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Is Deputy O'Callaghan finished?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I am happy to speak to the group of the amendments and then come back on their finer details. I would like to spend a little bit more time on amendment No. 205. There are several issues, including that the relevant section of the Bill lists 15 areas on which a national planning policy statement can be issued. I know the Minister will remind me, and I am surprised he has not done so...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I have two small points on the amendments to be clear. Let us look at amendment No. 206. It is not that it would be in any way prescribing individual developments must have X or Y. In some senses, by listing these areas under what I am calling the priority areas for national planning policy statements, people would actually be saying that they need better guidance on this to try to avoid...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: It is quite obvious Deputy Gould is back.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: It is not up to the Minister.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: What is in amendment No. 207?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I am happy to start. I welcome the Minister of State. Amendment No. 211 relates to-----

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: -----section 24-----

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: -----and the considerations for issuance of a national planning statement. Subsection (2) deals with the provisions for consultation. The word "may" here is too weak. There absolutely has to be consultation on these statements. I understand that the practice to date, in general, has been to have consultations. Some of the consultation has been very positive and very significant. I see...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: That is quite a remarkable admission. What the Minister of State is actually saying - and he has said it pretty clearly - is that there could be a set of circumstances where a national planning policy statement could issue without any public consultation because-----

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: I was getting to that. An urgent need is identified. Of course, who decides what is urgent? The Government does, not any objective identifier. The Minister of State then told us not worry because some of these statements can be very technical. They are the ones, in fact, that the public needs to be most vigilant and alert to because very often they are the ones that have the most...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: That is what is troubling me.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: Actually, no. It is a case to support my own argument. Is the Minister of State saying then, that for example, any national planning policy statement guidelines that would require EIA, SEA or AA would automatically have to go out for public consultation and that this provision could not be used for that in all stages?

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: That is helpful. The regulation of the bulk purchase of houses is a really good case as to why some public consultation would have been useful, because that has not worked. I will not open the debate we had on the floor of the Dáil a couple of weeks back.

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: The figures from the CSO show that in the year after the regulation was introduced the actual number of bulk purchases of houses and duplexes increased. The regulation does not include apartments. If there had been some proper consultation process, there would have been a better regulation. Notwithstanding the fact that I supported the decision, albeit belated, of Government to move on the...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Eoin Ó Broin: The Minister of State is digging a hole for himself because the 2020 guidelines were heavily criticised by planning authorities in a number of large urban centres. I recall talking to two senior planning officials in two local authorities who complained that nobody even talked to them about the regulations. I have no idea whether that is true and I do not imagine that the Minister of State...