Results 3,681-3,700 of 14,941 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: That is being replaced with "in relation to retention permission for any unauthorised structure". That is a significant change in wording. I would like to know what is the rationale for the change.

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

Eoin Ó Broin: The amendment is to bring clarity to what the retention permission cannot apply to. Perhaps the officials could explain to the Minister of State to explain to me what it is then we are excluding. The words being changed are "in relation to any permission for the retention on land or a maritime site of any structure". To what is this wording now being disapplied?

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

Eoin Ó Broin: Let me just make a general comment and then ask one last question. Apologies for being so pernickety about this but we have had two rounds of very controversial substitute consent legislation that have been passed by the Oireachtas in the past two or three years. They often relate not to retentions as we would often understand them but to very complex and damaging unauthorised developments...

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

Eoin Ó Broin: The definition underpinning this that we discussed at the start is completely compatible with the definition of substitute consent under the 2000 Act. There is no variation or change.

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

Eoin Ó Broin: To go back to Deputy Boyd Barrett's question concerning there being no time limit on the retrospection, in a normal retention situation, someone goes and builds something, they apply for retention and they are allowed to do so. Substitute consent does not work like that and the Minister of State's officials will know this. Under the legislation we dealt with, and I am pretty sure it was the...

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

Eoin Ó Broin: No. They are rolled into the one application. That was the controversy the last time.

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

Eoin Ó Broin: When we did the substitute consent legislation, there was a very controversial element to it. This is probably a very good time to remind people why it is a very bad idea to introduce complex substitute consent legislation using amendments on Report Stage at the end of another piece of legislation. That, however, was a battle we lost. There was a facility whereby if there was an...

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

Eoin Ó Broin: Yes. There was a procedure whereby as part of that substitute consent application it was also possible to make a request for additional new development connected to the activity for which substitute consent was being applied for. At the time, we argued that those two things should not be allowed to happen. It was almost like a reward was being given for breaking the planning rules in the...

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

Eoin Ó Broin: Actually, when we were discussing this, one of the things we asked the officials at the time was why this would be done. They said one instance could be a case in which a quarry owner who had been illegally quarrying material wished to retrospectively regularise that but also to expand his quarrying activity. In fact, in that case, the new bit of development is not about fixing or cleaning...

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

Eoin Ó Broin: No. This is the whole point. I am trying to remember-----

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

Eoin Ó Broin: No. The question to the Minister of State from Deputy Boyd Barrett was with respect to retention permission and if there is a time limit. The Minister of State had indicated, on the basis of the information from the officials, that no there is not. I am asking if that answer applies in the case of substitute consent, where a portion of it includes a new development.

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

Eoin Ó Broin: All I am saying, and I do not know if this situation is intentional or just emanating from the complexity of this Bill, is that I strongly urge the officials to look again at this aspect. I say this because if someone gets a grant - it could be for an additional development, a factory space or an outhouse - surely some time limit should be placed on it, like any planning application.

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

Eoin Ó Broin: Is that clear? The Minister of State seems to be getting two different bits of advice.

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

Eoin Ó Broin: It is within the substitute consent grant, because it is specific to its substitute consent.

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

Eoin Ó Broin: I have one final technical question relating to this. A lot of the discussion on the substitute consent legislation and a lot of the reasons for it related to Derrybrien and the very significant fines. To go back to the original definition of “unauthorised development”, are the officials absolutely clear that Derrybrien, as they understand it, would be captured by that...

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

Eoin Ó Broin: I thank the Minister of State.

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

Eoin Ó Broin: I have one more question, and I apologise for being so pedantic about this. The Minister of State indicated that the legal advice was that cases such as Derrybrien would be covered by the definition on page 36. Was specific legal advice sought as to whether Derrybrien itself would have been covered? This might seem a little abstract to the Minister of State, being new to it, but that was...

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

Eoin Ó Broin: It was not, therefore, explicitly about whether it would have covered Derrybrien, but it would have been assumed to be part of the overall assessment of the legal advice.

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

Eoin Ó Broin: I thank the Minister of State.

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

Eoin Ó Broin: Will the Minister of State explain amendment No. 581?