John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the regulations before us on the exemption of commercial properties from the requirement to go through an often lengthy planning process to be converted into productive residential units for individuals and families. I assure Senator Higgins that this got ample discussion at last Thursday's meeting of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, where the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, was present and all members of the committee present contributed on it.

I have campaigned for some time on the fact that vacant and derelict former public houses have been omitted from the original regulations introduced in 2018. It is now being rectified. We all know many such former pubs across the country in towns, villages and cities that are a blot on the landscape and could be put to far better use as residential units. That is what we are doing by introducing these regulations. It removes the red tape in order to bring them back into use. Since the regulations were introduced in 2018, they have delivered 1,400 residential units, including 676 in the last 12 months. We are making progress and those numbers of units should not be sniffed at. By including vacant and derelict former pubs, we will see a far higher take-up.

There are notifications regarding section 57 that have to be negotiated with the local authority in the event that a property is a protected structure or has architectural merit. Those protections are inbuilt as is the necessity to be in accordance with existing regulations, be it fire or size requirements for units.

This is a welcome move by the Government that has come from evidence on the ground of issues that have been fed up through the Oireachtas joint committee to the Minister. Action has now been taken and it is a perfect example of how the system can and does work. We often give out when it does not work but this is an example of the system working.