Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

This group of amendments provides a number of substantial amendments to the planning Bill, some of which were required to bring the national planning laws into compliance with EU law. The drafting of these complex amendments was not finalised in time for debate in this House but the legal proposals were outlined at that time to this House.

Amendment No. 50 makes a number of amendments to section 34 of the principal Act. Section 34(8)(f) currently provides that where a planning authority fails to make a decision on a planning application within the prescribed period, normally eight weeks from the date of lodgment, a decision to grant permission shall be regarded as having been given on the last day of the period, that is, a default permission. That provision is now considered undesirable. It has been criticised by the High Court and the Supreme Court. It means that if through administrative error a decision is not made in time, a wholly unsuitable type of development could be permitted or even, where the proposed development is accepted in principle, no planning conditions, including conditions requiring a development contribution, may be attached. The amendment to section 34(8)(f) of the principal Act provides that a default decision to grant permission will only be deemed to be given 12 weeks after the expiration of the time for deciding the application. It has been provided that the default decision to grant permission will not apply to applications for development which require environmental impact assessment or appropriate assessment under the habitats directive. In such cases, a series of fines will be paid by the planning authority if it continues not to decide an application. In the highly unlikely event of a year having passed without the planning authority making a decision on the planning application, the application will require to be advertised again at the expense of the planning authority and submissions invited from the public and prescribed bodies. In no uncertain terms, this tells the planning authority to make a decision or else. It deals with the very few cases where a decision has not been made by the planning authority, which is a good thing.