Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 9:

In page 5, line 28, to delete "1 January 2024" and substitute "1 January 2022".

These amendments seek to pull back the period over which the provisions allowing for an extension of a county development plan is permitted to be effected. There is no justification for allowing multiple extensions out to 1 January 2024. Such extensions will operate not only to provide for potential disconnects with other county development plans, the national planning framework, regional guidelines, spatial strategies and core strategies in county development plans, CDPs, but settlement strategies will also be compromised. They will maintain the status quofor developers and also delay the development of new CDPs which provide for necessary climate action and mitigation as is required in legislation and which are expressly required to be assessed by the planning regulator.

The Oireachtas has been more than accommodating where there is evidence and need established in the context of the pandemic, but the prescription proposed here to effectively subvert the planning system is disproportionate and inadequately justified at the point of legislating for it.