Results 4,561-4,580 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) (28 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, at which we will continue our pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft planning and development Bill 2022. We are joined today from the Irish Environmental Network, IEN, by Ms Attracta Uí Bhroin. Ms Phoebe Duvall and Dr. Elaine McGoff of An Taisce are both appearing with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (28 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: I thank Ms Uí Bhroin. I am going to move on to Ms Meghen to make the opening statement on behalf of the RIAI.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: Good morning everybody, and welcome to the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage where we are carrying out pre-legislative scrutiny on the proposed planning and development Bill 2022. This morning we are joined by members of the Irish Planning Institute, IPI, and the Royal Town Planning Institute Ireland, RTPI. They are all very welcome here to assist us in the scrutiny....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: Thank you Mr. Lawlor. That section by section submission that you are proposing to submit would be welcomed by the committee. We would like to get eyes on that. Do you have any idea when you would have that completed, because that is a substantial bit of work to do?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: We are aiming to have our pre-legislative scrutiny report completed by the end of March, which is about five weeks or so away. This round of pre-legislative scrutiny finishes on 9 March. In the following three weeks, we will compile the submissions from the expert witnesses who have came in and also written submissions that we sought from other sectors, because we could not accommodate...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: Ms Brennan mentioned the RIAI in her submission. For the record, we invited its representatives to attend today and they were unable to attend, but we will accommodate them during Thursday's session because it is important that we hear from them as well. I will move now to questions from the members, which will be in eight-minute segments. I call Deputy Ó Broin.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: What section is that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: I apologise that we will have to move on because we only have eight minutes per segment. We will have time to get back to him. It was section 335 to which Mr. Lawlor was referring. I call Deputy Higgins.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: On Deputy Higgins's point there, some of the scanned documents are also illegible then, such as scanned drawings that appear in applications. I call Senator Boyhan to speak next, please.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: I will ask Ms Brennan to address that question, first, for the RTPI.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: That is a direct submission to the board. I agree with the Senator. The information should be available. I think there is a limit of 12 years of storage on other information, which I-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: I wish to return to sections 334 and 335 with regard to access to information and the length of time for which it is available. I will ask some other questions, but we might come back to it. With regard to what are known as section 5 declarations at present, now called section 8, at the local authority level, do the members of the organisations before us find that section 5 declarations...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: That would be my understanding as well. I do not see why, in the current section 8, there is a proposal to take an observer or third party out of the process. One has to be a relevant person, whereas at present it would be up to you or I to seek a-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: Have RTPI members working in local authorities indicated that section 5 declarations are in some way onerous or difficult?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: We should retain the provisions of section 5 in the new section 8. We are looking at the numbers. Resources are always a big issue. Resources have been a consistent theme in our meetings with An Bord Pleanála, the Planning Regulator and the representatives who are before us today. We met representatives of local government and regional assemblies on Tuesday. They reported that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: Is that 87 graduates, in total, from all the schools?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Steven Matthews: That is the number of people who went into the planning system.