Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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158. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will urgently review and abolish for a one-year period the charges and planning levies applied by local authorities for planning permissions and change of use applications by small and medium enterprises in order to encourage development and job creation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43375/14]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Planning and Development Regulations 2001, as amended, prescribe the current planning application fees. Any proposed changes to the fees, which were last increased in 1998, would require the endorsement of the Oireachtas pursuant to section 262 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended. While planning application fees are kept under regular review in my Department, I have no plans to reduce the fees at this time. With regard to the encouragement of development and job creation, one of the actions in the Government’s Construction 2020 – A Strategy for a Renewed Construction Sector, which was published in May 2014 and is aimed at facilitating increased activity in the construction sector, is that developers be enabled to avail of reduced development contributions for existing planning permissions that have yet to be activated. Provision for this measure will be incorporated in the forthcoming Planning and Development Bill. Under the proposed provisions, developers with planning permissions granted under previous development contribution schemes will be enabled to avail of the reduced development contribution charges being applied under the new development contribution schemes where their permissions have not yet been activated.

This measure is intended to assist in making developments more economically viable and bringing them on-stream earlier than might otherwise be the case. It is intended that this Bill will be enacted in early 2015.