Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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85. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he plans to extend existing planning permissions to allow projects to be completed which are presently delayed due to Covid-19 restrictions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6321/21]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Section 42 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 (‘the 2000 Act’) presently provides that an applicant may seek a single period of extension of duration of an existing planning permission, for an additional period as determined by the planning authority to a maximum of five years, except in the circumstances of subsection (1A) of section 42 of the 2000 Act.

Subsection (1A) of section 42 of the 2000 Act, as inserted by section 28(2)(a) of the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016, as substituted by section 1 of the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2017, concerns developments relating to 20 or more houses in respect of which an environmental impact assessment or an appropriate assessment, or both of those assessments, were not required before the permission was granted. Under the provisions of subsection (1A), an application may be made to further extend the appropriate period.

There are no proposals at present to bring forward additional legislative amendments to provide for an extension of duration of development, with particular respect to delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the Department is keeping this situation under review and is liaising with the Office of the Attorney General with respect to legislative options in this regard.