Results 8,841-8,860 of 15,265 for speaker:Eoin Ó Broin

Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: Not this time anyway.

Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: I think we had established that quite clearly and accept it with good grace. I have one question. Is the Minister of State saying that there will be no additional interim protections in those areas where legacy projects are going to advance beyond the requirements within the existing planning regime in this Bill for environmental impact assessments and appropriate assessments? While I...

Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: The Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, is correct. Clearly, there are protections in the planning process in advance of the designation of marine protected areas. The challenge is that they are not strong, particularly as they do not have to take into account to the same extent the ecosystems approach, which is crucial both to the maritime special planning directive and the marine protected...

Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: I have seven seconds left.

Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: We heard yesterday that the sensitivity mapping is not going to be complete until the end of next year. That is a significant time lag. What interim measures will be in place to ensure marine diversity is protected?

Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: To be clear, nobody is talking about ripping up the marine planning framework. There are many aspects of the marine planning framework which are very good, so it is important the Minister of State understands that we are not opposed to it or asking to rewrite it, and we would just like the review to happen earlier. While the Minister of State is correct that the Government does have to...

Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: During the very lengthy Committee Stage hearings we had on this legislation, one of the points I made regularly was that our party, and in fact everybody on the committee, urgently wants us to be able to get up and running with the planning regime for the marine in order that we can progress our renewable wind energy projects to meet those crucial targets, not only as part of the Government's...

Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: I am appreciative of the fact that this amendment has been tabled, but the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, did not answer the specific question. We argued on Committee Stage that a similar provision should be made available with respect to ministerial guidelines and policy directives. Is there a reason that was not considered? Given the significance of the policy directives and...

Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: While I acknowledge that the Minister of State explained amendment No. 56 briefly, could he give us a little more detail or clarity regarding why the wording is being changed?

Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: I wish to speak to amendment No. 2. This is a very welcome amendment, as I am sure the Minister of State's briefing note tells him. Opposition members of the committee were arguing very strongly that the marine planning policy statement should have the formal approval of the Dáil. The amendment provides for that. This is similar to the maritime area plan and the planning framework....

Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: The strategic housing developments were probably one of the worst changes to our planning regime for many decades. It is not the only bad change made by the previous Government and other Deputies have correctly identified the section 28 mandatory ministerial guidelines and there are also key aspects of the national planning framework that are continuing to cause us significant problems. ...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: One of the issues is areas where there have been conflicts between ministerial guidelines and city and county development plans, which we will come to later as well in the context of other amendments. Is there a potential here that if the 70% was to be varied, it could find itself in conflict with a city or county development plan's retail or enterprise strategy? In such conflicts, which...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: Yes. One of the issues that has arisen is the very significant increase in judicial reviews of decisions by the board with respect to SHDs. A large number of those judicial reviews have been won. In 90% of the cases that were won, the developer materially contravened the city or county development plan and the board approved that permission. The cause of that conflict was not so much the...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: My amendment does not rule out in all circumstances consideration of planning applications where such applications include material contraventions of the development plan. It asserts what is already in the Planning and Development Act, as amended, that is, that such requests to materially contravene development plans should only be made in exceptional circumstances. It goes on to say that,...

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (1 Dec 2021)

Eoin Ó Broin: The Planning and Development Act already includes a general exceptional circumstances test with regard to material contraventions in planning applications. The problem is, as we saw with the SHD process - and this speaks to Deputy Duffy's point - a much higher number of material contraventions were sought, granted and then overturned in the courts. If a local authority planning department...