Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

This is an amazing day. I think it is the biggest Bill ever brought to the House at more than 800 pages. These things do not happen overnight. Despite what people say about rushing legislation through, this is probably the most unrushed Bill we have ever had in the House. It is three years in the making. There was more than 30 pre-legislative scrutiny meetings. The housing committee has to be commended. No matter what wages you are on, I refer to the number of meetings they had – morning, noon and night. The Chair was Deputy Steven Matthews, my colleague in the Green Party, and we did not see him at all for ages. We thought he had left the country. All the committee members have to be commended for the hours they put into this. They invited many stakeholders in. This is a real piece of democracy. Politicians, experts on housings, NGOs and all kinds of people came in and had input into this, as well as the great civil servants who worked very hard on this and supported the politicians in their great work. It is important we acknowledge that. I will not debate for a second any nonsense around it being a rushed Bill.

It is amazing we got to this Stage of the Bill. It is great also there was ample opportunity on Committee Stage for any and every TD to attend the committee whenever they wanted to speak to the Bill. That is something to bear in mind if we have speakers in the House today saying it has been rushed through, guillotined and we had no chance. Just explain to people that all the Oireachtas committees are open for Members to come in and speak to any Bill they like. It is important they know that.

Participation in the planning process is vital. It is not set out clearly in this Bill how the public can make submissions to the planning system, so that needs to be clarified. Even though there are spurious judicial reviews, as Senator Seery Kearney said, there are some legitimate reviews as well, and that is why there is a balancing act. Many people object to things that have absolutely nothing to do with them whatsoever but there are legitimate ones as well. We need clarity around participation in the planning process for this Bill.

I also commend my colleague, Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh, who got community gardens included in the Bill. People kind of pooh-pooh community gardens but they are vital for social and mental health. It is good we recognised them. Many people do not have access to land but would like to have access to land. Community gardens are hugely important for communities to come together.

I will probably table an amendment to section 84, requiring the Minister to clearly set out information on where, how and within what timeframes a member of the public can make an observation.

During the Report Stage in the Dáil, the Minister removed reference in section 86 to the climate Act. I understand this may have been due to the section requiring only “have regard to”. It is critically important to decision-making in the planning system that decisions are consistent with our obligations under the climate Act. I hope the Minister will table an amendment to section 86 to remind planning authorities of their obligations under the Act. For far too long, local authorities have been building housing on floodplains. They kind of got away with it in some instances in the past. However, with ten months of rain, it has never been more abundantly clear that we have to take the effects of climate change seriously in our planning. It has to be embedded in the planning, and that has to be outlined. I will table an amendment in that regard.

Public rights of way are also important. They are of vital importance and must be maintained within the development plan. A parliamentary question to the Minister stated that there would be no substantive changes to the inclusion of public rights of way in the development plan. However, it would appear that there has been some weakening of this process. I will work with those concerned with maintaining public rights of way and will submit a Committee Stage amendment.

We have to talk about consistency among local authorities. Talking to some of my urban colleagues, on some local authorities, councillors, TDs and Senators can be representatives for planning applications and there is a procedure within the council for that. Some urban Senators might find that quite shocking. It is completely unheard of on other local authorities. I know planners who have left local authorities because of the political pressure they have been put under to push through planning on applications that were not appropriate and not fitting with the laws of the land. We need to make sure we have consistency across every local authority. No matter how many councillors are pushing through planning applications because the applicants are a cousin, brother, sister-in-law or daughter, we have to have standards for housing. For too long we have seen houses that are absolute monstrosities put in most inappropriate places, and then somebody else getting shot down because they put up a lean-to. We need consistency. No politician should be involved in planning. The Minister has been completely removed from that, thanks be to God, over the years. However, at local level, councillors, TDs and Senators should not be involved in the planning process in any way. They are not planners. The planners need to be left to do their job. This is a huge issue. I speak first-hand to planners. We have lost many good planners who would not bend to political will, leaving our system because of it. The ones who are willing to bend to it stay. That is a huge issue. They do not want to stay either, but they have to support their families. We need to look at that and stop this nonsense about political representations for individual planning permissions or big companies' planning permissions or whoever.

The rent pressure zones issue is a huge one for me. We did not have any in Clare. We finally got them in Ennis and Shannon following hard work by me, Deputy Matthews and others in changing the algorithm. My son was renting a house in Ennistymon and the rent quadrupled overnight. That was it. The landlord asked, “Could you bring the rent?” He got away completely scot-free because there are no rent pressure zones in other areas. However, there is huge pressure on rents everywhere now because of the housing crisis. It is not fit for purpose anymore that the rent pressure zones are only in urban areas. We need them in every town and village. Tourist areas are fleecing local people for rent because there are so many holidaymakers. That is an issue as well.

I welcome the Minister’s comments and clarification on the matters outlined above, perhaps not today but through this process. I look forward to coming back to it on Committee Stage and tabling some amendments. I commend again the Ministers, the civil servants, the stakeholders, all the outside parties who came in, and Deputy Steven Matthews and all committee members for the tireless work that has gone into bringing us this 800-page document that is vital for the future of the country.