Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is an interesting debate. I have two or three points to raise with the Minister.

It is extremely important to ensure this Bill does not become an avenue for speculation. One of the features towards the end of the so-called Celtic tiger was where there were a lot of developers getting planning on sites and flipping them overnight. Many of the builders who came in and bought those sites were cowboys. This legislation is about the building of houses. It cannot be about speculation. The following are the questions I want to ask the Minister. Are there limits in the Bill? If a developer goes for planning to An Bord Pleanála on a strategic site, are there limits in place to ensure that these houses will be built? One cannot have a situation in which the developer sits on the site for any length of time with no houses built or instead flips it over to someone else who has not got the planning on the site and who may not be the type of person one wants to build that development. As the Minister is aware, it is not only about the site but also is about who will build the houses. I, and probably everyone else if he or she is being honest, have seen sites that were flipped over by developers and some of the individuals who built on those sites have been disastrous. The purpose of this legislation is to fast-track the building of homes. What control mechanisms are in place to ensure that if planning is given by An Bord Pleanála, the houses will be built quickly and to ensure that whoever gets planning on this will build the houses instead of flipping the site over to someone who will sit on it where one is into the realm of speculation?

It would be extremely important to ensure that this legislation does not have the unintended consequence of encouraging the rezoning of land where land that is currently not zoned for residential use for whatever reason finds its way into being rezoned and then the owner applies.

I welcome the legislation. I very much see the purpose of it. The Minister designated a site in Limerick as being one of the national sites. I very much welcome that the local authority would have an input. My understanding of the way the legislation will work is that there will be a pre-consultation period with the local authority and residents and others will still be able to submit objections to An Bord Pleanála. Is there a way that they could feed into the pre-consultation phase process that the local authorities are required to carry out? Maybe it is in the legislation. I merely want to be certain so that what one will have is the local authority with pre-consultation and a feed-in reference with the local councillors and local residents so that when their submission goes to An Bord Pleanála, there is a rounded and built-in review process under way and local people can have their input.