Victor Boyhan (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, for coming to the House to discuss this Commencement matter. It is ironic that as the former Minister of State in the Department, Senator Malcolm Noonan, takes the Chair, it was he who responded to one of the final Commencement matters taken last year in relation to this area.

I had a look yesterday at the number of times I have raised this matter since 2016. Luckily, I kept a few copies of documents, so that when I was looking for archive hard copies I found that I still had a few in my office. The Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, published in 2016 with a foreword by then Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, set out clear ambition and guidance for the delivery of a fully comprehensive IT suite and online interactive portal for citizens all over the country. I was on the housing committee from then onwards and I continued to monitor that. There has been a lack of real progress. To be fair, as the Minister of State will appreciate, we have had a whole new Planning and Development Act since then. I looked at the Estimates in relation to funding sought and granted for this project. That is another point to make.

I will be as brief and concise as I can because I recognise, to be fair, that we have a new Planning and Development Act and comprehensive reform of our planning system. An Coimisiún Pleanála plays a critical role in the Irish planning system, deciding on appeals, planning decisions made by local authorities and direct applications for major housing, infrastructure and other categories of development. Historically, instances of failures in corporate governance and direction framed public debate and public confidence in our planning system and An Bord Pleanála, as it was then. Thankfully, a new code of practice is in place that is guiding governance matters within An Coimisiún Pleanála.

In my Commencement matter, I asked the Minister to provide an update on the progress on the full roll-out of the Plean-IT project to enable full citizen engagement. That will now be the focus of my commentary. It is important to fully enable citizens to go online as part of their engagement in the planning process for appeals, applications and other submissions. Online services and enhanced portal and website functions should be available for all citizens from all parts of the country. I spoke to a number of councillors, particularly in rural communities, where there were difficulties in this regard and citizens had difficulty accessing the system. Clearly, if people do not have IT competence, there are issues. In terms of the ready availability of coloured scanned graphs, however, some local authorities are raising issues with the capacity to scan accurately and with great clarity coloured graphs and photographs and upload them to the system. This is particularly the case with protected structures. I do not want to knock the system and I accept there are challenges, but we have to address them.

Access to and participation in the planning system are important for all citizen engagement. It is important to maximise the use of our new IT systems and online capabilities and technologies to support the operations of An Coimisiún Pleanála, the planning authorities and anyone who wants to interact with our planning process.

I ask for an update on progress and seek assurances from the Minister of State that his Department is satisfied An Coimisiún Pleanála has sufficient resources to deliver its remit, particularly in this area. I hope it will not be necessary to pursue this in great detail but there are serious concerns in relation to the IT capacity, but also the overruns, of a number of bodies under the aegis of Departments. We know from correspondence I have on file that a number of pilot projects costing substantial amounts of money have not been fully delivered. We may need to revisit An Coimisiún Pleanála, in particular, in relation to costs, overruns and systems being abandoned halfway through the process. There are challenges and concerns, and there may need to be a greater focus on those. I am here to listen to the update, however, because I do not know what the current state of progress is in this regard, which is why I have asked the Minister of State to the House.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for the opportunity to update the House on progress with on the Plean-IT project in An Bord Pleanála, now An Coimisiún Pleanála.

The Senator's question is interesting, based on the response I have, and he will hear it now. An Bord Pleanála commenced an ICT strategy in 2013. The purpose of the strategy was to address the organisation’s reliance on legacy systems. The Plean-IT programme was initiated in 2014 to implement this strategy. An external consulting firm was appointed following a public procurement process to carry out a feasibility study to assist in making a business case for the project. The business case was for three elements: a new case management system, geographical information systems, GIS, and a new website and portal. The project was projected to take five years, from 2014 to 2019.A further public procurement process led to an external IT company being appointed to develop the selected CMS development. This development commenced in 2016, and the CMS went live in October 2017. The GIS element of the project also went live during 2017 and was integrated with the new CMS.

At the conclusion of the initial five-year period, a suite of enhancements and system improvements were introduced. This was the second phase of the project. Additional external expertise was publicly procured in 2019 to progress this phase. The board approved the renovation of the CMS using an internal team led by a new project manager and business analyst. The system has now been operational for eight years in total. Throughout the implementation period, the board reported regularly to the Minister for housing on progress.

In April 2021, a new website was launched which facilitated online submissions and-or observations, including associated fees for cases before the board. As is standard with all major ICT projects, a lessons learnt review of Plean-IT was carried out in 2022 by an external consultant following a public procurement process. A director of transformation and digital services post was sanctioned following the ministerial action plan and the Office of the Planning Regulator report of 2022 to head up the next development phase of the board's ICT strategy.

An Coimisiún Pleanála's transformation and digital services units are working with the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer to develop online applications to provide the capability for the public to submit planning appeals online. Regulations were introduced last year, and SI 540 of 2025 specifically provides that appeals to An Coimisiún Pleanála can be made in electronic form.

An Coimisiún Pleanála commenced a pilot of the system for online submission of planning appeals towards the end of November. This pilot ran throughout December 2025 and was open to the public. Pending some recent upgrades and further testing, the system for online appeals is expected to go live during February 2026, which is obviously a significant development. I hope this provides clarity.

Senator Boyhan's question asks about the IT system, which was completed five years ago and which has been operational for eight years.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

That was not my question. My question was to ask the Minister to provide information on progress. In fairness, the Minister of State has done that. There is no ambiguity about my question, however, the purpose of which was to ask the Minister to provide information on progress with the roll-out of the Plean-IT project to enable full citizen engagement. It is simple; it is a two-line Commencement matter.

I thank the Minister of State for the update because he highlighted matters of which I was not aware. He will know that I am in possession of correspondence. I will be happy to share it with the Department on Monday. I arranged to have a number of parliamentary questions asked in the Dáil by a network of TDs with which I work closely. We were told that there were possible legislative impediments holding back the board from progressing its full IT suite. We will need to look at that. It is very interesting that the Minister of State shared with us information on the lessons learnt report and I thank him for this. Clearly I will be looking to see a copy of it. It is important. We are here to improve the system and not to knock it.

I acknowledge we are making progress, the positivity in the board and how it is addressing other issues but these are for another day. My real focus is on citizens and on city and county councillors and their ability to fully interact to the maximum capacity that technology allows through an IT planning system that is fit for purpose and that will assist all of us, particularly with the national development plan and infrastructural challenges. The Minister of State has been to the fore in all of this and has been supportive of it. We want to encourage our citizens to rather than stymie or stop them from engaging fully with the planning process. I want to do this, and I know the Minister of State wants to do it. This is why I asked for an update. The update is helpful because I am now aware of things I did not know before. I appreciate the Minister of State bringing them to the table and I thank him.

John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Everyone is entitled to bring whatever they wish into the Chamber. I hope I have provided Senator Boyhan with a clear update of the timelines and the progress that has been made. Of course, An Coimisiún Pleanála wants to continue to improve its digital services in order that all customers can interact with it in an appropriate manner.

I want to put on record my thanks to An Coimisiún Pleanála for the significant progress it has made in turning matters around since its establishment. We now have a situation where all large-scale residential development applications for developments of more than 100 units are disposed of within the statutory 16-week timeframe. This is completely transformational and is having a positive impact in terms of the delivery of housing throughout the country. It is also important to put on record the significant work that has gone into bringing the number of cases on hand down from a high of more than 3,600 a couple of years ago to approximately 1,300 last month. The goal is to get the number down to 1,200. It will never be zero, and we will always have applications in the system. However, the organisation is working to ensure that we have a modern, fit-for-purpose planning system that meets current needs and that addresses the deficits relating to the backlog of applications.