Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Many questions have been asked and I will try to deal with as many as I can. If I miss any please feel free to contact me before next week.

A number of themes came through. I am a little uncomfortable with the terminology "fast track planning" because it suggests it is being rushed and it is not. We are speaking about putting in place a properly resourced process whereby there is preplanning consultation which involves proper and significant engagement with local authorities and developers. Developers will have to prepare a much higher quality application, otherwise the timeline simply will not be sufficient to deal with the application and it will get thrown out. It will be deemed not to be ready for an application after nine weeks and the recommendation will probably be not to apply to An Bord Pleanála.

The idea that local councillors have no role is not the case. There is no reason the procedure that exists in local authorities, whereby controversial planning applications are referred to a committee for discussion and planners get feedback from democratically elected councillors on how they look at planning applications, cannot happen during the preplanning consultation process. Ultimately, planners make the recommendations on planning issues. Of course councillors make decisions and recommendations on zoning issues, local area plans, policy considerations and a series of other things that contribute to county development plans, city development plans and local area plans, and this will remain unaffected. The preplanning consultation process is about ensuring that on zoned land which has already been earmarked by councillors for houses, issues regarding quality, design, density, amenities and other facilities linked to large-scale development are provided for in the planning application. It will be a pretty robust exchange. There will be pressure on the developers in particular, knowing there is a nine week timeline and that is it, to get their ducks in a row and ensure they are consistent with local area plans to make the formal application to An Bord Pleanála.

The reason An Bord Pleanála is involved in the preplanning consultation with local authorities is so there is local knowledge when the application formally goes to An Bord Pleanála and somebody, or a team, from An Bord Pleanála has been involved or is receiving reports from the preplanning consultation process that happened over the previous nine week period. A good point was made that local authorities have local knowledge. An Bord Pleanála cannot be expected to have this level of local knowledge. The point of having it involved in the pre-application process is to ensure local knowledge is part of the consideration when it comes to the board.

I assure the House this is not a rush job. It is trying to ensure we have a statutory time limit in place so we have some certainty over decision-making which, from a minimum point of view, could be about 25 weeks of pretty rigorous assessment after which there will be another rigorous assessment of the formal application.

It would not be true to say the only appeal mechanism is a judicial review. A judicial review reviews the process by which the consideration took place and consistency with legality. It does not review the planning decision because no judge is a qualified planner. Perhaps one might happen to be, but it is not the connection that is relevant.

What is happening is the vast majority of large planning applications for residential developments end up with An Bord Pleanála anyway. We are including An Bord Pleanála in the pre-application stage so it understands local issues and can factor them into making a good decision over a 16-week period where councillors, members of the public or anybody else for that matter can object and make observations.