John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I come from a different perspective than Senator Higgins, particularly in relation to section 9 because I have seen first hand the value of exempted development. I have seen the changes we have made to the classes of development, turning commercial development into residential development for housing. I have seen it in my city of Waterford play in conjunction with the repair and lease scheme. I have seen it in Dungarvan, where former pubs have been converted into residential units without the requirement to go for planning through exempted development. It has resulted, regardless of what anyone will argue here today, in the saving of at least 18 months in terms of the timeframe. Nobody here is going to convince me that exempted development is not appropriate in certain circumstances. I am assuming in the way the legislation has been drafted, it has removed the list per se. It is to give the flexibility in secondary legislation to be able adapt to circumstances. When the Minister visited Waterford two years ago, I pointed out to him a development which had been a former pub that had been vacant for ten years and that had been converted into a residential development after a two-year delay in the planning process and there were now people in those units. What did we do? Because we had the flexibility to do so, we changed the exempted development to include that class of commercial to residential.

I really support exempted development because I have seen first hand the value it has in terms of speeding up the process to deliver homes for individuals and families right across this country. We can get caught up in the technicalities and in debates about merits or demerits of certain things, but exempted development and the flexibility to adapt to deliver homes for people cannot be underestimated. We cannot just dismiss that. That is the purpose of having the ability to do this.

In the Minister of State's remarks, I ask for clarity that the exempted developments we have in place at the moment, such as the one I mentioned, will continue and will be in place in secondary legislation. We are giving the ability, which I support, to be able to have that flexibility through the legislation before us but I want some reassurance that the circumstances that exist today will continue when the Bill is enacted.