Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend my colleague on her marathon speech on a marathon grouping of amendments. We only get one shot at Committee Stage and Senator Higgins took a pretty good shot.

The last-minute amendments on social and affordable housing propose the suspension of the Part 8 process for up to two years. That option has been presented as a mechanism to speed up the delivery of social and affordable homes. Sinn Féin has always said we will look positively at any measures that accelerate or seek to accelerate the increased delivery of social and affordable homes. We would have chosen other ways of doing so but we do not oppose the amendments. However, the amendments do contain a number of risks the Minister of State should and needs to address. First, it is not clear how much time will be saved by a suspension of the Part 8 process. There is also a risk of creating conflict with council staff, elected members and the public. It is unclear how many, if any, additional social and affordable homes will be delivered by the suspension. Finally, the removal of public participation, as we know, could be also open to litigation which could, therefore, delay projects.

Having said all that, we are in a housing emergency. Sinn Féin will not stand in the way of this proposal. However, we would ask, and I know Sinn Féin has asked this in the Dáil, that the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage - some of its members are present, including Senators Fitzpatrick, Boyhan and Moynihan - be provided with a quarterly report on the use of the provision to allow the committee to monitor it very closely. Notwithstanding what Senator Higgins has said about engagement with councillors, chief executives need to engage with councillors extremely early in this process.

In conclusion, given that Sinn Féin is strongly opposed to the An Bord Pleanála section of the Bill but not opposed to the Part 8 suspension section, we will abstain on the legislation itself.