Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the Planning and Development Act. It is a substantial document and runs to 870 pages. It was signed by Uachtarán na hÉireann on 17 September 2024. It is now almost March. I understand that people have even had a difficulty getting a hard copy of the Act. It is still in the preparation stage. I need to clarify that and the Leader might check it out because it is important that we have the document. It also needs to be translated into Irish, which is standard and right, and should happen. This is one of the biggest pieces of legislation that ever went through the Houses of the Oireachtas. A sizeable amount of time was spent discussing the legislation in this House, the Dáil and at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government. The next thing we need is to see a schedule of the plans for its implementation. Peppered through the commitments in the programme for Government are references to the detail of the Planning and Development Act. We talk about a town-centred approach and slicker and more embraced planning issues. We need to fast-track planning. We need to take away the obstacles to housing and commercial development.

We also need to examine the IT systems of An Bord Pleanála and the millions of euro that have been spent by that body. We still do not have the full roll-out of a functional IT setup for An Bord Pleanála. That is ongoing and I have been pursuing the issue in recent days. I intend to revisit the issue in the House next week. I ask the Leader if we can see the full publication of the hard copy version of the legislation. Can we have a timeline for the schedule of the sections that are going to be rolled out? That is important.