Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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262. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if it will require an amendment to existing legislation to put the new national planning framework on a statutory footing; if so, the anticipated timeframe for this legislation; and if the Houses of the Oireachtas will get to vote on the plan in its entirety for it to be put on a statutory footing. [7318/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The placing of the National Planning Framework (as successor to the 2002 National Spatial Strategy) on a statutory footing was recommended by the Final report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments (the Mahon Tribunal) which was published on 22 March 2012.

To give effect to this recommendation, which requires an amendment to the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, section 7 of the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016 - which was published in January 2016 - provides that:

- the Government shall submit the draft of the revised, or any new, National Planning Framework, together with the Environmental Report and Appropriate Assessment Report for the approval of each House of the Oireachtas before it is published, and

- in preparing or revising the National Planning Framework, the Government shall have regard to any resolution or report of, or of any committee of, the Oireachtas that is made, during the period for consideration, as regards the proposed strategy or, as the case may be, the Framework as proposed to be revised.

The Bill has commenced its Oireachtas passage and is currently awaiting Committee Stage in the Dail. It is intended that the Bill will be enacted prior to the summer recess.