Results 4,301-4,320 of 9,814 for speaker:Steven Matthews

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: Does each local authority report on its progress on enforcement?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: Enforcement proceedings can be onerous on a local authority. They are complex. I am unsure about where decisions are made on which cases to prioritise and how to pursue them. A rolling register of enforcement cases that had gone beyond six weeks since issuing the warning letters and the investigations that followed would help to improve enforcement. We would all agree that enforcement...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: The local authorities deal with complex projects as well. They can deal with wind farms up to a certain size and with environmental impact and other appropriate assessments. They have the ability to get in that expertise.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: To return to the issue of online information, does the Aarhus Convention require that planning documents be made available in an electronic, online format?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: Very few documents nowadays are not provided in an electronic format, including even drawings.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: Two areas concern me. When you try to look a planning application online, it is often a scanned document. I accept that in the local authority, somebody has to scan these documents, but sometimes they just do not show up online or pictures or maps can be indecipherable. We have an opportunity here. I acknowledge the e-planning system is a completely different matter, beyond the scope of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: Okay. If we have the opportunity to improve that, we should do so. I find it very frustrating at times and I am sure others do as well.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: We will come back to the Deputy.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: Only Deputy Gould, Senator Boyhan and I are in the room at present. Other members are in the Chamber with the Minister. I will continue on this issue for the moment. Representatives of the Dublin Democratic Planning Alliance appeared before the committee. One of its members who attended was a senior counsel. I asked this question regarding the applicant being a person. Subsection...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: To be clear, if you put down four names representing some neighbourhood group on a piece of paper, that is then known as the applicant and it has legal capacity.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: Okay. Why do they have to be named? Why cannot it just be, for example, Knocksink residents' association?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: We also had references to organisations such as the GAA. If they wish to make an application, do they have to put down named people on the application? Can they apply as-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: Do such organisations meet that test? I do not know.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: To clarify, there will be changes involving the applicant having legal capacity to bring proceedings. To have legal capacity, an applicant does not have to be an individual person but can be a group of named people.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: If you would, because that issue came up. There was also the issue of eligibility. In order to seek judicial review, unless an applicant is a company, that applicant must have participated in the submission stage.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: It states somewhere in the draft Bill that in a judicial review, you can only raise the grounds you raised in your previous engagement. If you were to make a submission in the first week of the assessment of a planning file, how would you know that some part of the process would not go wrong three or four weeks into the plan? How can you anticipate a ground you may have to raise once the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: Is it not? Okay. Essentially, the officials are saying you do not have to have engaged in the planning process at any stage and do not have to have put in a submission, but you still retain the right as an applicant, which could consist of a number of named people, or an individual, incorporated body or company, to seek a judicial review.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: If the four of us present live in close proximity to a proposed development, and feel the decision would impact on environment, water quality or whatever it may be, does that demonstrate sufficient interest?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: At this point, and I note discussion on the basis of an explanatory note would have been very helpful on this, we need a very clear explanatory note laying out who has standing at present, what is required to be presented as sufficient interest, and what "directly or indirectly materially affected by" means. If we had a table laying out who is eligible, what criteria they have to meet and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (9 Mar 2023)

Steven Matthews: Could we apply a similar logic or a similar suggestion such that if residents associations are going to be able to be represented by their executive, then the company could be represented by its executive, which may be the board or the members?