Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Consultation of the best quality is consultation in which you get heard and that has an impact. I understand people are making submissions. In fact, they have been extremely active in doing so. There is urgency. It is not simply about the environment. We will come to that later. Although there are the matters of the strategic environmental assessment and other environmental issues, there is also a section 15 obligation, regarding which the planning regulator would normally be involved and giving an assessment in respect of these areas. That is another concern where the provision needs to be strengthened in an extension.

The key point concerns the period of a year. We may well be facing another general or local election and it looks as if we are extending past the period in which we will have responsive county and city development plans. We hear all the time rhetoric on moving more decisions to An Bord Pleanála. We have had the strategic housing developments, which were an attempt to bypass local authorities altogether. There are often very heated comments on how bad it is that local authorities and so forth are engaging on various policies. Therefore, I worry that we are going to see an acceleration of certain forms of planning without county development plans that allow local authority members to take the lead in framing how their local areas respond to these challenges. I worry that we will see instead planning that is led by the Land Development Agency, An Bord Pleanála and the Minister because we will have city and county development plans that are not of the moment in the way they could be and in the way their authors might wish them to be. I am concerned about that. Even during Covid, there has sometimes been quite escalated usage of the caps in terms of planning applications and co-ordinated pushes. I worry that the voice of the public, which is ready for change, will be put on ice. That is the fear. I accept the circumstances right now but 2024 is an overreach. Therefore, I will have to press at least one or two of these amendments.