Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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311. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the emergency measures he will take to address the significant backlog of applications to An Bord Pleanála, which has resulted in the agency failing to decide on nearly two-thirds of current applications within the statutory timeframe. [15227/23]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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An Bord Pleanála (the Board) is the national independent statutory body with responsibility for the determination of planning appeals and direct applications for strategic infrastructure and other developments under the Planning and Development Act 2000 (the Act), as amended, and certain other Acts.

Section 126 of the Act provides that it shall be the duty and objective of the Board to decide appeals as expeditiously as may be and, for that purpose, to take all such steps as are open to it to ensure that, insofar as is practicable, there are no avoidable delays at any stage in the determination of appeals.

Section 126 also provides that it shall be an objective of the Board to ensure that every appeal is determined within 18 weeks beginning on the date of receipt of an appeal. It is important to acknowledge that a certain percentage of cases, due to particular circumstances, such as complexity, requests for further information from applicants for permission or further submissions from other participants including third parties, will not meet the 18 week target.

The Planning and Development and Foreshore (Amendment) Act 2022, which was signed into law in December 2022, addressed certain initial matters which required immediate action on foot of the Action Plan for An Bord Pleanála, Phase 1 of the Office of the Planning Regulator Review of An Bord Pleanála and other matters relating to addressing board vacancies and the board’s case load in light of its new marine functions, including:

- Providing for a suitable, independent, objective and transparent procedure by which recommendations may be made to the Minister in relation to the recruitment and appointment of ordinary members of the Board through an open competitive process,

- Increasing the limit on the maximum number of members of the Board from 10 to 15, so as to ensure that the increasing caseload can be managed, and the appropriate quorums and suitable allocation of casefiles can be assured, and

- Expanding the provision to appoint temporary ordinary board members to allow for the appointment of serving or former civil servants, public servants, or employees of the Board for a term of up to a year.

Arrangements are being put in place for the new Board member appointment process, and in the interim temporary board members are being assigned. Since early January I have appointed five temporary ordinary board members to the Board of An Bord Pleanála, bringing its current membership to 9 (as at 28 March 2023), and five further temporary appointments are in the process of being made. In addition, a full term Board appointment will be made shortly following a recent competition managed by the Public Appointments Service (PAS) to recruit an ordinary board member with marine and environment experience. These six new appointments will join the Board in April 2023.

In November 2022, following an updated assessment by the Board of resourcing issues likely to emerge as a result of planning applications for the National Development Plan and other infrastructure projects, the Boards new marine functions, as well as a number of senior positions approved under the Action Plan for An Bord Pleanála, and in accordance with the 2022-2023 Workforce Plan, the Board sought sanction for 34 additional posts. My Department provided sanction for these additional 34 posts in December 2022 and An Bord Pleanála is in the process of filling these positions.

The Board have received an exchequer allocation of €26.9 million for 2023, which is an increase of €4.7million on the 2022 allocation.

Finally, “Housing for All – A New Housing Plan for Ireland” sets out a number of objectives with the aim of improving the functioning of the planning system including the comprehensive review and consolidation of planning legislation. This review, which was led by the Attorney General, contained a number of key proposals in relation to An Bord Pleanála. In this regard, the new draft Planning and Development Bill was agreed by Government on 13 December 2022 and was published on my Departments website on the 26 January 2023. The draft Bill has undergone pre-legislative scrutiny by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing who will now compile a report for my consideration.

The draft Bill provides for the introduction of statutory mandatory timelines for all consent processes, including appeals and consent applications made to An Bord Pleanála. It is intended that the timelines for the Board will be introduced on a phased basis, starting with those for Strategic Infrastructure Developments (including energy projects). Where the Board fails to make decisions with these timelines, it will be subject to fines. It is intended that the timelines for the Board will be introduced on a phased basis, starting with those for Strategic Infrastructure Developments (including energy projects).