Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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355. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if his Department has ever issued a circular in relation to section 50B of the Planning and Development Act 2000. [9398/22]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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My Department issued Circular Letter PL 09-2018 on 9 November 2018 advising planning authorities of the commencement of various provisions contained in the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2018 further to the signing of the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2018 (Commencement) Order 2018 (S.I. No. 436/2018).

Amongst the provisions commenced was an amendment to Section 50B of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, which extended the section 50B special legal cost rules to judicial reviews of decisions, actions or omissions made under national law implementing the Appropriate Assessment provisions of the Habitats Directive. This supplemented the pre-existing section 50B provisions applying the special legal cost rules to judicial reviews of decisions, actions or omissions made under national law implementing the EU Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive (the SEA Directive) and those elements of the EU Environmental Impact Assessment Directive (the EIA Directive) and the EU Integrated Pollution Protection and Control Directive (the IPPC Directive) providing for the challenging of decisions, acts or omissions subject to public participation.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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356. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the current regulations in relation to planning permission to install solar panels on the roof of a school. [9409/22]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Under the Planning and Development Act, 2000, as amended (the Act), all development, unless specifically exempted under the Act or associated Regulations, requires planning permission. Section 4 of the Act and Schedule 2 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001, as amended (the Regulations), set out various exemptions from the requirement to obtain planning permission. Any such exemptions are subject to compliance with any general restrictions on exemptions set out in the Act or the Regulations and to the specific conditions set out in each class of exempted development in Schedule 2 of the Regulations. Included in the planning exemptions set out in the Regulations are those applying to the installation of solar infrastructure on a variety of building types, including houses, businesses, industrial and agricultural, to which specific conditions are attached. There is currently no planning exemption set out in the Regulations for the installation of solar panels on the roof of a school.

My Department, in the context of the Climate Action Plan and in consultation with the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, has undertaken a review of the solar panel planning exemptions set out in the Regulations, with a particular focus on facilitating increased self-generation of electricity. This review is now complete. Substantial changes to the current planning exemption thresholds for solar panels are proposed, as well as the introduction of new classes of solar panel planning exemptions for apartments and educational/community/religious buildings.

In light of the need to appropriately address aviation safety concerns arising from the “glint and glare” impacts of solar panels and the easing of the solar panel planning exemption thresholds, the regulations will cover the vast majority of the land area of the country with limited restriction zones around airports.

The draft regulations have been reviewed under the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive 2001/42/EC and it has been determined that they are likely to have significant effects on the environment, necessitating the undertaking of a full SEA on the draft proposals. It is anticipated that the formal SEA process will commence, with consultation with the statutory environmental authorities to inform the content of the Environmental Report, following the completion of the screening for Appropriate Assessment by my Department’s Ecological Assessment Unit. The SEA Environmental Report will be published alongside the draft regulations for a period of public consultation of not less than 4 weeks. This public consultation is expected to commence shortly. A copy of the draft regulations and the Environmental Report will be made available for inspection over this period. Written submissions or observations will be taken into consideration before the finalisation of the draft regulations.

As required under planning legislation, the proposed exempted development regulations must be laid in draft form before the Houses of the Oireachtas and receive a positive resolution from both Houses before they can be made and the SEA process concluded. It is intended that the process for finalising the solar panel planning exemptions will be completed in the coming months.

While these regulations are being advanced, my Department is concurrently examining the scope to draft supplementary regulations to further expand the exemptions by way of reducing the proposed restriction zones around airports.