Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, welcome Dutch "The Giver" O'Brien to the House.

This Bill is technical as it allows for various amendments to the Planning and Development Act 2000, and extends time limits for the formulation of development plans among other things. All of this is very relevant and necessary, given how important it is that there is leeway and grieving space in view of the Covid-19 situation and the 18 months of disruption that it has caused.

I notice that the main provisions of the Bill will cease to have effect on 1 January 2024. These sunset clauses are welcome in relation to all emergency and technical amendments that arise from Covid. Why was that date chosen and not an earlier date? It seems to me that 1 January 2023 would make more sense as it would be 18 months from today, thus compensating for the 18 months lost since March 2020. I have no issue with the date being January 2024 as long as there is a good reason for doing so but special Covid provisions should only stand for as long as is absolutely necessary. There may be some technical reason this is necessary so I ask the Minister to clarify the matter. I welcome the provisions that make it clear that before extending the duration of existing development plans, cognisance must be taken of whether such extensions would have an impact on the environment or protected sites.

The focus of this Bill is on local authority development plans which brings to mind an issue that I mentioned recently on Second Stage of the Affordable Housing Bill 2021, which will reach its final Stages in this House today. I refer to the issue of the vacant site levy under the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015. I tabled an amendment on that subject on Committee Stage but because of the guillotine it just was not dealt with. My amendment is before the House today and I am interested in hearing what the Minister thinks of it on Report Stage.

I ask that the Minister, as a former Member of the Seanad, somebody who contributed to the Seanad with distinction and was a very pleasant colleague as well, to please use his influence with Government to stop this disgraceful habit of guillotining legislation. It is an absolute scandal that it happens on Committee Stage of legislation. The legislation that he has brought forward is extremely important but we can sit as long as necessary to allow Seanadóirí to tease out issues, especially on Committee Stage. I do not know what goes on in the Dáil, whether the cancer of this happens to the same extent but it is a serious problem in the body politik. It diminishes public respect for the work that we must do as legislators. I ask the Minister to get outside the Government majoritarian mindset that influences this behaviour and urge respect for the processes in both the Dáil and Seanad.

It is in that context that I hope to hear his thoughts on my amendment today because the vacant site levy simply does not work in the way that it was intended. As far as I know, only ten local authorities seem to be in a position to enforce the levy. Just 359 vacant sites were registered across 22 local authorities as of December 2020, and nine local authorities had registered that they had no vacant sites. In addition, there is well over €1 million in uncollected levies. One has a loss of revenue and a strange situation where those with eligible sites are being levied and those with similarly eligible sites are not being levied.The legislation lays out a cumbersome method of doing so. That seems to involve a significant burden of manpower and resources to facilitate assessment.

It seems that a couple of simple amendments can be made to this system in the interests of creating a more efficient levy. First, if the Minister makes it a requirement that properties which have been the subject of a grant of planning permission for residential development above a certain number of units, but where development has not commenced, should be considered to be vacant sites in the first instance. Second, if an element of self-assessment was brought into the operation of the levy, compelling landowners of sites that have been the subject of grants of planning permission to register those sites, it would at least ease the burden and ensure a greater level of registration of eligible sites. It would then be for the council to identify whether such registered properties are in an area of housing need before applying the levy.

There are a number of requirements at the moment. The property involved has to be residential, in an area of housing need and suitable for housing. The local authority has to jump through these hoops but there is something wrong with the way it is working. It is not delivering the revenue. We need to incentivise people who have land that needs to be developed and that is suitable for housing to get on with it and not to be sitting on properties in the expectation that property values would rise. That is the thinking behind what is proposed and I would be grateful to hear the Minister's thoughts on the matter. I am mentioning this because if it does not succeed today, I will be back with it and it may well be a relevant amendment to this legislation.