John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise to the Minister for his sitting in the chair for the last three hours without getting to speak. I promise I will be brief in my points. I feel left out of the conversation this morning, so felt the necessity of contributing. I will bring it around the amendments and sections we are dealing with. Section 46 deals with housing development strategies and section 52 is on settlement-specific objectives. Obviously, the feed-through of any development plan which we are debating in these sections is the ability to be able to get planning permission for a development in a timely manner and to have certainty about timelines for decision-making. I appreciate we will not get to the later amendments I have on those matters, but it is relevant and important to say the biggest frustration for many is they have not been able to get through the planning process in that timely manner. I have a number of amendments on timelines for An Bord Pleanála's decision-making process. The timelines set out in this Bill are simply too long. The board or the coimisiún would have 18 weeks, followed by a period of four weeks, then a further period of six weeks, followed by a period of a week to make a decision. My amendments try to shorten that by four weeks. I hope that can be taken on board on Report Stage. It could be 18 weeks plus six plus one or 18 weeks plus four plus two plus one. It is important, in terms of making these development plans real, that people are able to get through the planning process in a timely manner.

Much has been said about rural planning policy and rural planning guidelines. Another point to make is that as the Minister would know, an important part many rural dwellers have is the option to apply for outline planning permission. It is a more cost-effective way whereby they do not have to go to the expense of going through all the full plans to get outline planning permission. I am aware that during the pre-legislative scrutiny stage, officials were not in favour of retaining outline planning permission. It is in the Bill but the way it has been written essentially makes it redundant because it starts the timeline for outline planning permission and if people subsequently get planning permission their time started from when they received the outline planning permission rather than planning permission, which totally defeats the purpose. I ask that be taken on board on Report Stage.The most important thing is that we have certainty in our planning system for all parties, whether those who oppose a development or those who support it. That is what we seek to do with this but I believe we need to go further and hope those things will be taken on board on Report Stage.