Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 Dec 2023

Continuing where I left off, will the Minister introduce amendments extending permission times for any developments that have been granted permission but then can be delayed by several years due to legal proceedings?

I also want to hear what will happen with judicial reviews. There are 2,000 judicial review applications opened before the High Court every year, 1,200 of which are planning related. Unfortunately, many are addicted to these weapons in the war on rights and property. They can add years to planning developments and massive costs which eventually the poor house buyer has to pay. This Bill is making some changes in that area but I wonder if it is enough. Of course, we need some means to stop what I call the super judicial reviewers. Peter Sweetman is one well known one. A less well-known one is Michael Duffy. He is one who lingers. This year, he has brought two judicial reviews. He brought four in 2022, three in 2021, one in 2020, three in 2015, two in 2013, three in 2012 and one in 2011. Could one man living in a very small town in Ireland holding up hundreds and hundreds of houses really have an interest in counties like Laois, many miles from him?

We read recently about the carry-on in Milltown in Dublin where a massive money-per-unit bid was sought. Following it, a senior lawyer left one of Ireland's largest law firms, Matheson, over a demand for payment for not objecting to planning permission being granted for a housing development. The Irish Independent revealed that neighbours in the salubrious southside Dublin suburb secretly sought €225,000 each to not block the project duration. The demand has been referred to the Garda and the developer reported for potential fraud. However, the written request for substantial payment was made from an official email address from one of the country's biggest firms of solicitors. The lead homeowner who sent the email was a senior lawyer at Matheson. This carry-on is not isolated.

I want to hear the Minister say how much further he will go on judicial reviews. For example, the law could be tightened to make the leave to seek cases and the full hearing of the claim heard at the same time in one set of proceedings. Is that in the Minister's plan? Will he make that mandatory rather than at the discretion of the judges, as it is at present? The biggest issue in courts is the time it takes from papers being lodged to when the court ultimately decides to reject a challenge or approve a planning decision. How many more judges will be appointed given that extra judges need to be assigned to the two planning lists?

I now want to summarise, as best I can, and briefly lay out in point form, my observations, views and asks in the expectation that amendments can be made to this mammoth Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill. First, I ask for councillors to get planning expertise so that it can be provided to them when dealing with a development plan. That will allow them to adequately and professionally scrutinise and amend, if necessary, the council management's initial draft plan. Second, I ask for a means by which specific prescribed elements of a development plan are acknowledged in the granted permission and are not open to challenge beyond An Bord Pleanála. I am thinking of the likes of height, density, design and infrastructural capacity to cater for zoned lands. Third, I ask for all outstanding decisions by An Bord Pleanála of 12 months or a longer duration to be immediately dealt with and finalised at least within six weeks of the passage of this Bill.

Fourth, with an eye on the Crofton Buildings Management CLG & Anor v. An Bord Pleanála appeal in the Supreme Court, in the event that it favours the initial development plan at the time at which the application was made over the development plan that came into force during the period of its deliberations, I ask the Minister of State to bring forward amendments to give supremacy to the plan that is in vogue at the time of the planning application, rather than any other that comes thereafter. Fifth, I ask that judicial reviews and An Bord Pleanála appeals or court proceedings are not allowed to run down the clock on a five-year permission. You can get a permission today, you can be in the courts for four years and go through all the processes I have mentioned, you can come out the right side of it, and only have a year to complete the development. That has to be amended.

My sixth point is on costs relating to judicial reviews by objectors. I believe within this plan they are to be assessed and capped prior to the commencement of a case and paid for by the State. That will be an improvement on the present scenario and circumstances, where the victors are charged with the responsibility of paying the costs of those who have caused such a lengthy delay. This is at great cost and expense not only to the developer, but to the State, in relation to the provision of housing. Seventh, I ask for serial judicial reviewers to be curtailed, because this has obviously turned into an industry in recent years. It is a runaway train. It is curtailing housing, energy projects, infrastructural projects and, indeed, it is curtailing the Government's ability to deliver a national development plan. In fact, I would go so far as to say we should seek to consider the curtailment or ridding of that process as a practice in areas of major significance or in cases of emergency. That is the road to go down. We have an emergency in housing yet we have a system that allows for developments to be held up in the courts for four or five years. We have an emergency in the provision of infrastructure to support residential or commercially zoned land yet we have a system that allows that to be curtailed. We have a system that allows, for example, for the curtailment of the provision of flood relief schemes. As I said earlier in relation to the national development plan, people in Midleton and elsewhere are amazed to find that objectors, reviews and appeals can curtail the provision of an emergency rectification work for the purpose of dealing with the effects of climate change. I earnestly and truthfully ask the Government and Minister in the provision of this mammoth amendment Bill to find a method or agreement among the coalition partners to devise a mechanism to curtail that. As I said to the Minister of State, we would then have far better figures for our housing output, infrastructural capacity and the commitments we make not just in this development plan but also those made in previous ones. At the same time as all that ambition, we cater and pander to objectors who have the capacity and the ability and who are paid the costs associated with holding up these developments for far too long. It is high time we tackle this properly and effectively and deal with it sufficiently.

Is díospóireacht an-tábhachtach í seo agus ba mhaith liom cúpla rud a rá i dtosach. I would first like to praise “RTÉ Investigates” for the fantastic work it has done, particularly even this week, in exposing corruption in public life on our television screens. I was absolutely disgusted to see that houses that were being proposed by a reputable developer on appropriately zoned land were being held up. There was a gun to the head and they had to pay up or the objection went in. I thought that day was long gone but clearly it is not.

We talk about development plans. In 1989, I was a councillor in Drogheda. There was a listed building on our development plan. It was listed as worthy of preservation but it was very kindly demolished in the middle of the night on a holiday weekend by a developer. By the Monday morning it was gone. It was a listed building. Where is the development plan? Where is the law? Where is the council? As it turned out, the only people who did anything about it were the late Eddie O'Doherty and me. There was an order of the court that it could not be demolished without planning permission, so we brought the developers who knocked down that listed building to the High Court. They were also prosecuted in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for the offences they committed. The company pleaded guilty in the Circuit Court. The person who did the actual demolition received a fine of €10,000. At least we fought to get that building back up again. If the Minister of State goes to Drogheda today - and he is very welcome - he can go up to St. Laurence Street and have a look at Drogheda Grammar School. It is there as it was 250 years ago. It has been rebuilt with handmade bricks in the style and manner in which it was originally constructed. That took a lot of effort. There was a change in the law after that, because they faced a fine of €10,000. As a result of our action, and their action in particular, the fine for breaking that law was increased to €1 million.

Around that time, as we all know because this went to all parts of the House and all political parties, there was the concept of the brown envelope. It is a fact that this happened from some Ministers down to Senators in the Seanad. I am not going to name anybody here because the courts have them all named. One of them, at least, did a jail sentence. The corruption in planning was evident and many people believed it was endemic. People became much more aware and there was much more transparency and accountability. The section 4 motions were ten-a-penny in county councils. In many cases, the councillors decided on a section 4 against the advice of planners about would happen with a particular site. That was done away with. That was a good decision and was right and proper.

I came to form the view, which might not be a popular one in this House, that we politicians should work on the development plan, create the space for the regulations to be made and agree or disagree with the zoning as it is presented to us. However, we have no professional expertise in planning as such. I leave it to the planners. I do not know the percentage of planning applications that are given by councils, and maybe the Minister of State could get it from the councils, which have great power and authority. In a lot of county councils it is somewhere over 90%. It is very high. Therefore, most people who apply for planning actually get it. There are a lot of good things going on. There have been changes in the law. We need more changes and that is what this Bill is about. It is about dealing with delays, what sort of country we would like to have in the future and what greater transparency we can have in our planning process.

One of the issues I would like to raise is the question of the actual development plan. We all know the development plans run to a particular - I think it is five years - cycle.

It was the case in the past that usually, if not always, the new development plan coincided with the first two months of the new council. The old council knew nothing about it and was not in a position to challenge or interrogate the development plan. The Minister of State is the man who is in place, but I think the development plans should be dealt with in the cycle of the existing council period of five years, and ideally at the commencement of that. That would give greater transparency, commitment, awareness and knowledge of what is in those plans.

Many objectors are legitimate; they are not all chancers and many of them have very good points to make. One of the problems when we get planning objections from people is they do not know about the plan, so we need a new way of dealing with that. When Louth County Council was introducing a new development plan, it went to the supermarkets and other public places, had public exhibitions, took a room at a local hotel and people knew it was going on, or at least some people knew it was on. Nevertheless, when the controversy arises, the people most affected generally know the least about it. We are in a different world now and people do not read papers any more, but we should take ads on radio, Facebook and so on to notify people of what fundamental changes are proposed. Local radio is very good for that. I mention Michael Reade, and I praise him obviously because he is on my local radio station. There are these key people in communities who interrogate politicians and interrogate changes and we should encourage them to have more programmes about these issues.

One of the issues that concerns me most about my town of Drogheda is not that we have 5,000 new houses with planning permission on the north side of town, because that is a fact, but that Drogheda needs to become a city and we do not have the administrative supports to manage the new communities in places like Drogheda, which are growing exponentially, as time moves on. Our population, according to the census, is over 44,000 people. We do not have a manager and we do not have an assistant manager. We have nobody running the town of Drogheda. The council runs it, but it is primarily based in Dundalk, so I have a Bill for the Minister of State, who I hope will still be there in January. It is called the Drogheda city Bill and deals with some of these issues. Galway became a city when its population was about 38,000, but that of Drogheda is 44,000 and there is no sign of a city yet, no sign of an assistant manager and no sign of a place people can go to locally to say what they want done or ask what is being done about a particular thing. That was all done away with by my good friend Phil Hogan when he abolished the city councils and the town councils. It was a bad decision. I know I was in the Dáil then and I bear my responsibility for that as well but it was a very bad decision and should be reversed totally.

Another matter I wish to raise is that of An Bord Pleanála. I believe in An Bord Pleanála, or I did until I saw a deputy chairman before the courts for not making a full declaration. He was fined something like €6,000. That concerned me greatly. I acknowledge that everybody is suing, the courts are the courts and in their wisdom that is the decision they made, but we must ensure any person in An Bord Pleanála is accountable and held accountable. Whatever protocols are not there, board members must sign a sworn affidavit, or whatever is needed, that they have declared all the properties they own and that any interests they may have are clearly, absolutely and transparently there for everybody to see. That needs to be done. Looking at An Bord Pleanála, I have a reply to a parliamentary question from 25 October, which is not too long ago. It lists An Bord Pleanála decisions from the date the appeal was lodged from the years 2019 to 2022 and 2023 to date and the average timescale for decisions. In 2019, when what is called a normal planning appeal went before the board, the average waiting time until a decision was 18 weeks. That is fair enough and pretty good. What is it now? At the end of September 2023, it was 46 weeks, which is almost a year. There are thus huge structural issues within An Bord Pleanála, which the Government is trying to address in this Bill, but I want to draw really serious attention to that. An Bord Pleanála is not able to do its job right now and it is not good enough. I agree with other speakers we need to get those decisions fairly and equitably. Whether one is for or against it, we need the decision in much quicker time. We also need to look at issues like whether we can exempt certain things from planning permission. We exempted solar panels and that made a huge difference. Are there other things we can exempt? I do not have an analysis of the figures and what the appeals are for, but I am sure sometimes somebody objects to a neighbour’s fence or shed in the backyard. If we were to pay attention to the reasons appeals go there, could we remove those from the list? Would it make sense for that to happen?

The other issue I wish to raise was brought fairly clearly to mind by Barry O’Kelly’s programme, namely, if one sets up a NGO as a bona fide organisation, what register is it on? There are very many genuine NGOs out there, but especially if they are making planning objection there should be a register and they must be on it. I presume somebody can do due diligence on that, but if there is a register one can check who the directors are and whether the organisation is audited. These are basic questions like the who, what, where and why of the NGO. A bona fide NGO will have no problem with that. Even a small NGO will not have a problem. However, if an NGO is like the one set up by the gentleman I saw on television last week then I have a real problem with that and it must be addressed. It must be stopped and stopped now.

The other point I want to raise is a talking topic at the moment around the country and indeed in this Chamber. It is the question of people sleeping in our streets tonight, international protection applicants who have nowhere to go. Why am I raising it here? I have a very good reason. I have a communication from a person in my constituency who has been working with a number of developers who have channelled significant investment into provision of the required accommodation for persons seeking international protection and also those from Ukraine fleeing the war. The developers have a lot of accommodation ready to be slept in tonight. It is already there. What is the problem? The problem is the fire service is overloaded with applications and cannot certify those buildings meet the fire certificate standards, even though they have already been accepted by the Department. I have tabled a parliamentary question on this for the Minister, rather than the Minister of State, asking how much accommodation has already been agreed for occupation with the Minister that is being prevented from being occupied because the fire services cannot deal with it. The answer is very simple. We as a State, or whatever, should employ appropriate, professional and independent people who are fully qualified to certify that those buildings meet the fire standards. The fire people are doing their very best, so I am not blaming them, but if we have not got the resources we must buy them in and that is what is not happening, to the best of my knowledge. This gentleman tells me we now have the ridiculous situation of hotels, hostels and bed and breakfasts that have been upgraded, assessed and certified by a competent person and are ready to provide much-needed shelter but await this further inspection. They remain in limbo. This constituent of mine is a small practitioner. He is aware of four different premises with approximately 250 beds that are fully certified and ready to be occupied this very night, but this is not happening. It is a very important point. I have asked the Minister to seek from IPAS confirmation of the total number of beds around the country that have been offered to IPAS with certification by a competent person that are yet to be taken up. I will have his answer in a couple of days. There is more we can do. Regardless of one’s view on it, we are doing our very best for the people from Ukraine and for international protection applicants. It is wrong as we head into Christmas that anybody is sleeping rough on our streets or sleeping in a tent in the cold with all the consequent issues that has for their health.

That is a short journey around the planning issues as I see them. The Bill has many good things in it and there are lots of good suggestions coming from people. Things have changed radically. I had thought the corruption and the brown envelope had disappeared forever, but they actually have not. There have been fundamental changes, more accountability and more transparency and that is what we need.

I welcome this debate.

Táim buíoch as an deis labhairt ar an gceist seo. Ar dtús déanfaidh mé déileáil le ceisteanna maidir leis an nGaeilge agus an Gaeltacht gur chóir go mbeadh sa Bhille seo, An Bille um Pleanáil agus Forbairt, 2023. Rinne mé sracfhéachaint ar an mBille mar ní bhfuair mé an deis an Bille ar fad a léamh i seachtain amháin. Tá an iomarca leathanach ann. Tá 700 leathanach agus 120 eile anuas air sin mar mheamram míniúcháin.

Tá ceisteanna ann, áit nach bhfuil forbairt amach anseo ó thaobh ceantar Gaeltachta ach go háirithe nach bhfuil siad luaite anseo i gceart. Tá Acht na Gaeltachta, 2012 luaite ann ceart go leor, ach ní fhaca mé an Ghaeltacht go dtí seo, agus má tá sé ann tá brón orm ach níor aimsigh mé é. Ba chóir go mbeadh i bhfad Éireann níos mó luaite, mar shampla i gCaibidil 5, áit atá na pleananna forbartha a bhíonn ag na húdaráis áitiúla á lua. Tá dualgas ar leith ann maidir le, mar shampla: forbairt eacnamaíochta; straitéis tithíochta; an timpeallacht; oidhreacht nádúrtha; agus oidhreacht tógála, ach níl aon dualgais leagtha síos anseo. Tá ceann ar leith maidir le pleanáil tithíocht nó forbairt i gceantair Ghaeltachta, áit ar gá dóibh déanamh cinnte de nach bhfuil siad ag teacht salach ar na pleananna teanga a bheas ann sna ceantair seo agus atá ann cheana féin, áit nach mbeadh siad ag teacht salach ar na treoirlínte a bheas ag an Aire.

Luaigh an tAire, ar maidin, i bhfreagra ar cheist de mo chuid, go bhfuil na treoirlíne thíor thall chun a bheith foilsithe agus ansin curtha amach ar chomhairliúcháin. Tá sé sin an-tábhachtach ó thaobh déanamh cinnte de gur féidir le lánúin agus le pobal na Gaeltachta fanacht sa cheantar sin, tithe a thógáil agus maireachtáil ann. Tá sé sin ar fad gafa anseo. Má táimid ag déanamh an reachtaíocht seo a rith, ba chóir go mbeadh níos mó aitheantas ann don ghéarchéim agus do na deacrachtaí a bhaineann le tógáil agus cónaí i gceantair Ghaeltachta, ní hamháin sna ceantair tuaithe ach sna ceantair chathrach, mar atá cathair na Gaillimhe faoi láthair. Tá bailte seirbhíse Gaeltachta san áireamh chomh maith. Tá líonraí Gaeilge san áireamh chomh maith. Tá cúig cinn de na líonraí ann cheana féin agus tá 26 cinn de na limistéir pleanála teanga ann. Caithimid déanamh cinnte de, ní hamháin ó thaobh pleanála de ach ó thaobh rudaí eile de, nach bhfuilimid ag rith reachtaíocht anseo atá ag teacht salach ar phleananna eile atá ann agus a bheas ann.

Tá Conradh na Gaeilge tar éis féachaint ar an reachtaíocht chomh maith agus tá seisean ag impí go mbeadh aitheantas ar leith ag staideanna difriúla; go mbeadh rann 19, rann 24 agus rann 27 ag déanamh cinnte de go mbeidh dualgas ar leith ag na staideanna sin aird a tharraingt ar ghnéithe áirithe. Tá siad ag iarraidh go mbeadh na rudaí seo a leanas san áireamh; oidhreacht, teanga agus cultúr pobail na Gaeilge na Gaeltachta a chosaint leis an nGaeilge a chur chun cinn mar theanga an phobail, go sonrach trí tacú a chur i bhfeidhm i bpleananna teanga, i limistéir pleanála teanga, i nGaeltachtaí, i mbailte seirbhíse Gaeilge agus i líonraí, mar a luaigh mé. Sin ceithre áiteanna ina bheadh sé sonrach agus tábhachtach go mbeadh muid ag díriú isteach ansin. Chlúdódh sé sin a lán. Chlúdódh sé aon choimisiún nua amach anseo nó aon chomhairle contae - siúd atá ag gabháil pleananna forbartha nó straitéise maidir le tógáil, fás agus forbairt sa Stát - ionas go dtuigeann siad gur ghá dóibh aird a tharraingt ar an oidhreacht Gaelach agus ar an oidhreacht cultúrtha atá againn.

Caithimid déanamh cinnte de, leis an nGaeilge, go mbeadh lucht pleanála ann a bhfuil Gaeilge acu. Bhí mé leis an gcoiste le déanaí ar Oileán Acla agus roimhe sin bhíomar i nGaeltacht Uíbh Ráthaigh. Ceann de na fadhbanna a bhíonn ann go minic nuair a bhíonn siad ag déileáil le ceisteanna pleanála ná go mbíonn orthu athrú go Béarla toisc nach bhfuil aon fheidhmeannach ann ag an leibhéal cuí chun déileáil leo i nGaeilge. Tá géarghá le díriú air sin, mar atá géarghá le díriú ar an gceist nach bhfuil an Ghaeilge mar cháilíocht, mar shampla más tusa an duine a bheadh mar phríomhfheidhmeannach ar chomhairle contae nó comhairle cathrach ina bhfuil ceantar Gaeltachta ann. Sin roinnt de na ceisteanna maidir leis an nGaeilge agus maidir leis an nGaeltacht.

Déanfaidh mé dul tríd an reachtaíocht agus déanfaidh mé leasuithe a chur a chun cinn ar Chéim an Choiste chun déileáil le roinnt acu seo, díreach chun déanamh cinnte de nach bhfuilimid ag déanamh dearmad air sin. Seo áit nach bhfuilimid ag déanamh dearmad ar cheisteanna eile, ar nós na timpeallachta agus sin, mar a dúirt mé. Tá na rudaí sin tábhachtach ach ní cheart go mbeadh siad curtha ar leataoibh.

Luaim ceist eile a thagann suas go rialta. Ní fheicim anseo é agus b'fhéidir nach í seo an áit cheart. Another question that needs to be tackled at some stage or other is neighbourhood disputes. This includes the tree that grows in your garden and is affecting your neighbour because it is wrecking the wall. Everybody laughs at me because I have introduced legislation on this, which is sitting there. It is important to people up and down the country that there is no mechanism available for this, whether that comes under planning law, mediation or something else, at some stage we need to address it. The legislation was produced with the help of the Office of Parliamentary Legal Adviser in the hope that at some stage we can get to grips with something that bothers people an awful lot.

The leaves but it is when all the things are growing up through your garden or if you cannot drive out of your driveway because you cannot cut the tree back. These are small concerns but they are the tensions that explode into something else in the long term. They are neighbourhood disputes that probably do not end up in here but it is a planning Bill and we should try to plan for this.

On the other aspects of this Bill, I was listening the other day when Deputy Madigan was speaking and I agreed with her, believe it or not, when she said that she was proud of public participation in the planning process. That is important. At the heart of all of this the public must play as big a role as it can. I do not agree with Deputy O'Dowd that we as politicians should be ruled out once the planning strategies are created by the council or once the development plan is signed off on. As Deputies we do not have as much say in that planning process. We have no more say than other citizens and rightly so but there are times when the wisdom or lack of wisdom of Deputies is important. We have an oversight and we often have a longer view than somebody who is next to it or who has a specific financial benefit in a plan. We can sometimes spot things or have an understanding of what is right or wrong.

At the end of the day, we do not get it for free. Like every other citizen, in our observations on plans we have to pony up whatever the fee is, which is €20 for the initial observation or €50 or €120 or €220 if you wish to go to An Bord Pleanála. If you are rich enough and have surplus cash, you can go to the courts as well. I do not remember any politician taking a judicial review. That is a huge amount of money and some of this Bill was fast-tracked because of the number of communities that raised money to undertake the judicial review process. I had heard of this although it was something I had never considered but the vast majority of these people appeared all of a sudden in a period of three, four or five years in my area, where the strategic housing developments were foisted on communities.

There was then a panic because those communities did not get earlier engagement with planners and the system. An application went straight to An Bord Pleanála, and that was the final decision. Those communities did not have recourse to a review or anything else. That has now been changed but it cost us, as a State, a fortune. It also created delay and bunged up An Bord Pleanála for that whole period. It was very expensive. I was at a local public meeting and one of the residents asked an expert in taking these cases what the cost would be. He suggested that it would be €50,000 to €60,000, and that half of it would be required up front. Very few communities in this country have that type of money to set aside. That is, in some ways, wrong. Part of the problem is that communities need to be engaged from a very early stage. Good planning applications should involve the community from very early on.

A number of years ago, there was a plot of land where I live. Builders were asking how to deal with the community. We did not have a residents association so we set one up and there are now 20 groups in it. Any time developers come to the area, they engage. The community managed to get money from Dublin City Council to put forward a vision for the area. The people in the community are involved from the start. It is not just me, the Minister of State and whoever else, but the whole community. Every organisation that works with people in the community is represented. That means there is a vision in the host community.

We know already there will be considerable development. I am thinking, in particular, about the City Edge Project. Everyone who knows Bluebell knows that from there to the Red Cow, both left and right, there are industrial estates. Under the project, some 70,000 people will be living in the area by 2050. That is the plan. The communities backing onto the area wanted to have their say and ask for this and that. It is good planning when we involve the community from day one. Where planners and developers do not engage, there are clashes. People will then raise points about height, density and car-parking. The local communities know that a development of 200 or 300 houses will change the local landscape. In the Liberties, for example, there has been a proliferation of student and short-stay accommodation in the past ten years. The community was not happy with that trend and asked where were the homes for the families who live in the area. They said the nature of the whole area would change and it has changed in some ways. Some of those changes have been good and some bad. A small, quiet area changed overnight with a lot of younger and transient people coming in. It has helped the economy and all of that but it changed the nature of the area. It will take time for the community and society in that area to settle down and find its own level again.

We in this country have suffered from bad planning, as we all know. There was a notice in the paper this week in respect of Cherry Orchard. It has taken years to get to this point. We have all heard about the area in the negative. Cherry Orchard has one shop, which is in a house. To this day, it has that one shop. That shows how bad planning affects people's lives. There is a new plan in place that will, we hope, front-load other services. A school in the area is considered one of the best primary schools in addressing needs and teaching young kids. People saw that the plan involves more homes but we also need to ensure there is proper planning for proper services. There is no butcher, hairdresser or solicitor in the town. There is a community centre with an extension. There is also a church, as well as the school. When planning, we must build in those considerations. In fairness, Dublin City Council and some of its officials have stuck with it. The problem is that a number of plans have fallen because of a lack of investment or a downturn in the economy, which means we have to start all over again ten years later. The same is true of the regeneration of many of the flat complexes in this city. The communities engage and their hopes are built up before being dashed again when they are told developments are not going ahead and the process restarts. In some cases, communities see three or four iterations of plans before anything happens. St. Michael's Estate is an example. We hope that regeneration will go ahead. Planning permission is being sought. Part of the Dolphin House project has been done but the rest has stalled. The development at St. Teresa's Gardens has stalled. The Oliver Bond flats are another example. Some of those complexes were built quite a long time ago and redevelopment has not been fully delivered.

We also know about the problems when the planning system is allowed to run wild by itself without oversight. That is not necessarily the fault of the planner but somebody has to have oversight of the finished product. We know about the 100,000 apartments in the State with major building defects and the costs for those living in those apartments. Management companies are demanding €30,000, €40,000 or €50,000 to address the problems with fireproofing, fire stops or water egress. Some car parks are totally closed because they are so dangerous. It does not augur well. We also have the pyrite and mica situation. That is not part of the Bill but it is part of the background, if you want. It is why people start to get frustrated when planning is mentioned.

Deputy O'Dowd mentioned the history of major corruption in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. We saw the "RTÉ Investigates" programme the other night, and have heard stories since, about corruption. People are abusing a system that was put in for the greater good and as an organisation to which people could appeal and make points about plans. People once again seem to have been using it for their own good even when they have no connection whatsoever to the area or to the plans in question.

I have, on occasion, had the pleasure or courtesy of working with some communities who have asked me to have oversight of plans that are submitted. I have made quite a number of observations. Some of them have been successful and some have not. They laugh at me in the office and ask if I am reaching for the bible again. The bible is the development plan, which is very large. That is what I have to base my observations on. If there is nothing in it, there is nothing in it. If somebody has zoned a piece of land in a particular way, so be it until the next development plan if he or she wants that zoning changed. We need to ensure that change happens right.

Only recently, someone contacted us about the zoning of a factory. He did not know anything about it but overnight that factory was zoned as residential. The factory employs 70 people and its owner has no intention of closing it. He is proud of his factory. He is a world leader, in fact. Anybody who sits on a plane sits on his products. He works in the Liberties, in one of the last weaving firms in the area, and in Donegal. The fabric for every aeroplane in the world is made there. The factory was going to close because somebody somewhere wrongly zoned or de-zoned it. That issue has been addressed, and that is, in some ways, the beauty of the planning system. When you spot a mistake such as that, you can go to the city council and it can change the rezoning in full public glare. It is not about one person winning over another. It happens in the full public glare, within the sight of the community and society, with all of us involved, if we wish to be.

This legislation is welcome.

Obviously, there will be a need for some changes to the legislation but I hope it will have the full effect suggested by the Minister when he introduced it to the House. I hope it will address the problems in the planning process, speed it up and address the need for community consultation.

The last couple of times I was in here, I went off subject but the Ceann Comhairle will be delighted to hear that I will stay on subject this evening. Unusually, I find myself agreeing with Deputy Ó Snodaigh on one point. I would like to bring to the Minister of State's attention the issue of trees, which is not entirely related to planning. We saw during the recent storm that ash dieback created a huge problem. Virtually every ash tree in the country is rotten. In a lot of estates that were taken in charge by county councils the tree of choice was ash and it is a huge problem. I have talked to tree surgeons who told me they have never dealt with as many trees in need of removal as they did after the last storm. Something needs to be done by the Department in conjunction with the Departments of agriculture and transport. It is going to be a huge issue on our roads as well. I suspect a time will come when insurance companies will void policies if they detect ash trees along the roadside. Major work needs to be done on this in the new year.

I commend the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, and the senior Minister, Deputy O'Brien, but more importantly, the staff who have worked tirelessly over many long hours on this momentous legislation. It will rightly provide the cornerstone for Irish planning into the coming decades. We all agree the current planning process is cumbersome and is certainly open to distortion and manipulation and this review was long overdue. I was particularly proud to be a member of the Oireachtas housing committee that oversaw the delivery of the Bill to this point. It was a steep learning curve but it gave us a great insight into the challenges and opportunities this legislation presents.

There are several key wins in the new Bill that I would like to home in on. It will improve consistency and alignment through all planning. We will see a significant restructuring of An Bord Pleanála, to be renamed An Coimisiún Pleanála, and an increase in its resources. The Bill provides for the introduction of statutory timelines for decision making which is probably one of the most frustrating and biggest bones of contention for developers and for communities who are upset or perplexed by would-be development. Another win is the reform of the planning judicial review process, including the introduction of a scale of fees and an environmental legal costs financial assistance mechanism. That is very important because there are groups that are genuinely motivated and that want the very best for their communities. They are not anti-development or part of the not-in-my-back-yard syndrome but have genuine concerns and the legislation is safe in the sense that they will not be excluded from the process. I am particularly excited by the new provisions for urban development zones underpinning key growth areas. This is going to be key for provincial towns in particular.

The Bill also provides mechanisms for the Government to make clear provisions for national planning policy measures and guidance in the form of the national planning framework and the national planning statements delivered through a plan-led system based on an integrated hierarchy of plan making. Key components of this will be a national planning framework and the three regional assemblies' spatial and economic strategies. The latter is very important for local county councillors who have felt frustrated that our regional assemblies were not getting the mandate or the authority they needed and deserved or the focal position they needed within local government. This legislation gives them an additional responsibility and that is to be welcomed.

We will see 31 local authority area development plans as mandated by the local planning authorities. Crucially, the hierarchy of plans will also underpin the delivery of our national climate objectives. For the first time our national planning policy and delivery will be aligned with our climate ambitions and targets. The Bill will ensure transparency and timely decision making, facilitate consistency and quality in decision making, ensure it is proportionate and sound and incorporate and encourage public participation in the plan-making and decision-making processes. Key to this is that we engage communities and bring people along. Too many times people get exercised because they feel they did not know something was happening or knew nothing about it until the planning notice went up. There is an onus on us and on local authorities in particular to get greater public engagement with our county development plans. Deputy Ó Snodaigh referred to the county development plan as the bible but unfortunately very few people, apart from local representatives, those with a key interest in their local communities and certain professionals, are aware of the county development plan or will ever have looked at it. Yet, it is a defining document in the context of the growth of a community and how it will evolve over a number of years.

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage undertook comprehensive pre-legislative scrutiny over February and March of this year and in May we submitted a report with more than 150 recommendations. I am pleased that these were carefully considered by the Minister. While a number of our recommendations pertained to the wider planning system rather than the primary legislation, the majority either informed the technical refinements in the Bill or had their policy objectives met by the revised Bill. Again, I thank the Minister of State, the senior Minister and the key staff who worked so diligently on this.

The Bill puts a very specific onus and responsibility on local authorities to drive and manage development in their areas for the betterment of local communities. Crucially, local authority development plans will be extended to a ten-year cycle. This is very important for local authority staff given the amount of work that goes into the development of these plans. I know that in Longford, for example, two years of work went into our award-winning county development plan. Staff were sidelined to work on it when they should have been fully engaged in the planning process itself. The Bill provides for a ten-year plan with a review after five years, with a key focus on spatial planning and a framework for decision making. Local area plans will be replaced by specific types of area-based plans. These will include urban area plans for towns designated as regional growth centres or key towns and proximity area plans which will be for a sub-part of an urban area that merits a specific plan. This will be critical in the context of regeneration of specific areas in towns and cities that may have significant socioeconomic challenges and in that respect is very welcome.

I also want to welcome the fact that the roles of the Minister and the Office of the Planning Regulator have been clarified in the context of the issuing of directives. The office will recommend to the Minister that a draft direction is required and the Minister will consider that recommendation. He or she will then direct the office to issue or not issue the draft direction. That is very important because too many of our local authorities and county councils are frustrated and annoyed by diktats from the planning regulator.

The time period for planning authorities to make decisions will remain at eight weeks. It is important the Minister did not extend the time period beyond that. This applies only to applications that do not require an environmental impact assessment report, EIAR. The timeline for applications that require such a report will be 12 weeks. This is in recognition of the additional complexity that will be addressed in these cases. As highlighted by the committee's report and a significant number of stakeholders, it is critical that the planning system is adequately resourced to undertake these and other required functions. This is essential in order to ensure the system we have can operate effectively and efficiently to deliver on the ambitions of Government and meet the economic, environmental and social needs of society in the interest of the common good. The planning process is influential and is very much the gateway through which we see all major development proposals. Equally, it is the process through which all of these proposals must be examined and ultimately validated. Increased complexity and the risk of litigation over many years has placed significant demands on the planning system at all levels and means that greater levels of input are required than in previous years to deliver comparable results.

I referenced earlier the integrity of the planning process. Given the recent controversy involving An Bord Pleanála, there is always a risk that we tar everybody with the same brush but over decades we have had many people working in local authorities, particularly in the planning departments, who are motivated by one absolute and defining goal, which is to deliver the best possible for their local area. I would reference one man in particular, the recently retired planning officer from County Longford, Mr. Donal Mac An Bheatha. We brought him all the way down from Dublin and re-programmed him and we can probably say he qualifies as a Longford man now. He brought a new perspective. He came to our county impassioned and emboldened with a belief that it was good to live in rural Ireland, that we should be encouraging people to live in rural Ireland and should take every opportunity to facilitate them in doing so.

For too long, we have allowed a system and institutes, such as the discredited An Bord Pleanála, to make it a bad concept or a dirty word to say that you want to live in rural Ireland. We heard about everything from ribbon development to the pressure it will put on resources and services, and all those issues. Ultimately, however, we see, and we saw in media reports today, the cost of the delivery of housing.

That brings me on to the Office of the Planning Regulator report and the number of houses it projected for County Longford. The midlands region has a population of 118,000 people aged between 18 and 45, but that report reckoned there was no requirement for housing in County Longford. Yet, we have people in the county who say they would love to live there post Covid. We saw, with the move to work from home and hybrid working, that people want to live in these rural areas. It is cheaper for them to build a house, the services are there, and there is great education and great opportunity. Many of our key blue-chip multinational companies say their biggest challenge now is attracting staff to the midlands and to rural Ireland because of the unavailability of adequate and decent housing. I hope that is something that can be addressed.

I will make another key point for the Minister of State to take away. I have already spoken about the integrity and commitment of our staff in local government and planning departments. If you talk to anybody throughout the country, unquestionably they will say there is absolute integrity in our planning teams across all our local authorities. They work very hard and under extreme pressure but they are committed. Many of them live in and have ties with the local community. They want to put their own stamp on and investment in the future of their local community and they work to their best. I have seen them and I see the pressure and strain they are under. As we move to staff up an coimisiún pleanála, we should not raid our local authorities and take the best and brightest staff out of them to put them into this new organisation. It was never more important that we adequately staff our local authorities, our housing departments and, more crucially, our planning departments. We are now giving local authorities a massive piece of work. We are giving them the legislation to make grandstand changes in the way we deliver progress in this country. It is now important that we do not tie their hands through not staffing those offices effectively.

I wish the Bill well on the rest of its journey. Again, I thank the Minister of State for his input, as well as the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and, crucially, the staff who have worked so hard in the preparation of this.

I thank the Minister of State. My contribution, in the context of the number of years I have been in the Dáil, is one of my most important. It is one of the last opportunities for me as a TD for Cork South-West to finally sort out the slow, laborious planning process people have to face day in, day out, especially in the area of west Cork because although we are blessed with beauty, it can unfortunately be a bit of a punishment from a planning perspective. I am talking in particular of one-off houses.

This legislation is big. I see its size in front of the Minister of State. It is hundreds and hundreds of pages of legislation. There has to be an opportunity in it to once and for all address an issue that has been an issue ever since I have been in politics, for 15 years now, and that is the obstacles and barriers faced by young people in particular - it is not just young people but I will single them out - in getting planning for one-off houses. I will pick up where Deputy Flaherty left off because this is clearly not just an issue in west Cork. It is taking some couples, if they are lucky, two to three years to get planning from the point of starting the process, picking a site, an architect and an engineer, putting it through the process, preplanning, back and forth, refusals, withdrawals and whatever it is. It is taking years and years. It is not just about time. As time goes on, costs increase. These young couples are paying tens of thousands of hard-earned money just to get their planning over the line. We had the report today on the cost of houses and the increase in cost. The planning issue has to be an aspect of that as the report included all costs and not just the build. The cost people are going through to get redesigns done, to do new designs and drawings, and the efforts as regards landscaping, etc. is prohibitive. The Bill has to be an opportunity to sort that out once and for all.

There is an issue with interpretation of the county development plans, where certain planners interpret them in one way, while the members who wrote the plans and were involved in drafting them interpret them in another. It is always the planners' interpretation that seems to win out, however. That is wholly unfair on applicants because it leads to a situation where there is back and forth. An applicant will choose what everybody else thinks is a reasonable site in a good location, within a farm holding or land or whatever it is, but for planners it is too elevated, it is scenic, it is exposed or it is ribbon development. Whatever it is they will pick every word that suits their interpretation of the county development plan. This legislation has to address that. We are not talking about allowing applicants free rein over where they want to put their dream house and putting it anywhere. We are talking about a reasonable interpretation because the experiences young people, in particular, are having are stressful and very costly.

There is then the issue of objections. We all saw "RTÉ Investigates" and the despicable behaviour that exposed. However, it is not just big developers who have to deal with these vexatious objections. Right across the board, young people building their first homes are also facing vexatious objections that are completely unreasonable but because of those objections, applications end up going to the board. It takes years to get through the board, although it is 18 months in some instances. It is far too long and we need to stamp that out.

It is not just individuals who are objecting. A big issue is that some of our own State bodies are objecting to young people's applications. This is the thing that frustrates me more than anything else. In west Cork, TII has made it a habit in respect of any individual who wants to build along the main corridor into west Cork, the N71, to make submissions and objections in many instances. The worst case I can think of concerns a young man who lives on a laneway off the N71, with his parents in the same house, who drives in and out of that entrance every day and has been doing so for his entire life. A perfect site was there in an ideal location. It had water, wastewater treatment services and everything. I understand that the area engineer, in that instance, was inclined to say it was okay and acceptable. The young man was already going in and out of the site and it was absolutely fine, yet TII came along, made a submission and put that area engineer in a position where he cannot grant permission.

I understand the health and safety implications. We have to look at them in all cases but, for God's sake, when someone is already going in and out of an entrance, it is ludicrous that TII, which does not know the individual or the pain this person has gone through with planning, is making objections. It is ridiculous. There are so many instances of this. There are instances where a farmer's son or daughter is looking to build next to the farmyard, for practical reasons, because they want to be close to it, but they are told it is too elevated and are put down into the deepest, darkest hole of a site. We cannot be the only ones experiencing this in west Cork. It has to be happening throughout Ireland. This legislation has to introduce mechanisms in order that things can be looked at in a balanced way and county development plans can be interpreted in a balanced way. I am not sure how long I have got.

I will talk about the islands. We are trying to repopulate our islands. Again, west Cork has some of the most beautiful and stunning inhabited islands, including Cape Clear, Sherkin, Dursey and Bear islands, to name just a few, but there is an issue. We have an issue in populating our housing and there is a housing issue. We introduced Croí Cónaithe, and an enhanced rate for it, to try to incentivise renovation of existing properties but that will only go so far. The frustrating thing is that these island councils on the individual islands are trying to think outside the box as regards how they increase housing on an island and encourage people to come. What they have done, for example on Cape Clear, is to follow the example of the Western Isles of Scotland.

There is a programme called gateway housing there. On Cape Clear they wanted to build four houses and give people an opportunity to experience island life. The people may pay rent in one of these houses for a two-year period, maybe in line with social housing rent prices. They would have a chance to experience what island life is like. It is so clever and so simple. When we have a place like Cape Clear that is struggling to keep its primary school open - there are only five students there at the moment - it so important that we encourage people out. Everyone thinks it is a good idea. I am sure that people listening would say "Yes that makes sense", but it is not backed by policy and it is not backed by the Cork County Council development plan because the island is seen as the same as the rest of the municipal district. There is a need within this Bill and we have to introduce something that incentivises innovative housing schemes like gateway housing in order that people have an opportunity to experience island life and then they may choose to stay there. Islands are such rich places. They are rich in culture, are rich in beauty and are such a great option for people but they need that opportunity to be able to live in these islands. What I would really like taken away from this contribution is that we introduce some type of policy, were Cape Clear to go for this again. They have gone for it but they were turned down by Cork County Council because the policy did not back it, but there is nothing we can do about that. This legislation might be an opportunity to address that.

A big chicken and egg scenario is the fact that we have villages and towns right across Ireland - and again I come back to Cork - where developers might be ready to press the "go" button, where sites might be available for development, and where you could get estates of 30 or 40 houses built. These are really important in areas where there is demand to live but they cannot be developed, mainly because of the lack of wastewater infrastructure in particular, or even drinking water. In Clonakilty it was a case of drinking water but thankfully there has been an enhanced supply which has allowed developments to go ahead now. That will not last forever and it will come to a pinch point again. There needs to be joined-up thinking between the local authorities, the Government and Irish Water so if we can identify a village where there is demand for 40, 50, or 60 houses and a developer is ready to go but the wastewater infrastructure is at capacity, then we have to get in there and build that wastewater system straight away. That is how we will increase supply of housing in Ireland in the areas that need it. I am not sure how that could be reflected in this Bill but I would certainly like to have this looked at.

I am sure the Minister of State will agree there are multiple issues in planning currently, many of which are not resolved in this Bill. In fact there are areas in the Bill that open us up to many more points of litigation the whole way through.

The one point I would like to make and repeat if necessary is that we cannot ever block citizens' rights to access the law and to make an objection. People who are genuinely affected must be allowed to object and be afforded due process. While the new Bill is exhaustive, what is required is a proper planning system. The current system is broken, mostly from continuing meddling. Although the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell and his senior Minister are well intentioned, let us not forget that so was the former Minister, Deputy Coveney, when he developed the strategic housing development, SHD, process, which ended up as little more than a €10 million bill for An Bord Pleanála. A more targeted legislation is required.

Many Members will have seen the "RTÉ Investigates" programme on Monday night. I commend Barry O'Kelly and his team on having put together a wonderful programme for the public to see just what goes on in the real world of building houses. It was nothing short of pure exploitation. Many people have said that we must now see targeted legislation and it is badly required. It was amazing that never had anyone in this House mentioned to me that this practice was going on, but since the programme aired, more than 60 TDs have come to me and told me their stories. It is clearly a very widespread and very well known practice but it is not mentioned in this Bill. It was evident from the programme that the system lends itself to no-cost jeopardy exploitation and racketeering. It is as simple as that. I was surprised to learn that virtually everybody elected in the House came to tell me a story of this. The Bill does not cater for it even with that level of recognition. Albeit the Minister of State is well intentioned, he is opening up areas of litigation for years to come if he does not have more targeted interventions. I have met no one who believes this Bill will solve the housing crisis. In fact, they are all of the opinion that a pause should be taken, a step back as it were, to ensure that we do the right thing. The real focus here must be proper planning.

Again, I preface my remarks by saying that everyone affected must have the right to object but the racketeering must stop. This must happen at first instance when the planning application is first made to the local authority. I will just repeat that for the Minister of State, because this is very important. The racketeering can only be stopped, and that must happen at first instance, when the planning application is made at the local authority stage. It must be at the first instance. The application cannot be left go to An Bord Pleanála or to the judicial review stage. We must introduce some sort of adjudication system at the entry level to ensure that any complaint is validated before it can proceed. Locals with valid complaints need not fear this system because ultimately, if anything, a valid objection will in fact give credibility to it and the sincerity of it. The idea is that locals can continue to make their complaints and they will have valid objections. What we saw on "RTÉ Investigates" were people in the west of the country making planning objections in the south of the country on planning applications and sites they had never visited. It is clearly not a valid objection and there were so many. In one instance I saw the submission that was a rebuttal to their objection. I can tell you that it was very evident and plain to be seen by a trained eye in the planning process that this was not a valid objection. Because it was probably never going to be looked at until the next stage where the appeal may have to be granted, that is where we need this validation at first instance.

In effect, something must be put in place to ensure that the complaint is substantive. If a complaint is made on an environmental point, which generally these are, it should at the very least be signed off by a registered environmentalist in order to be moved to the next stage of An Bord Pleanála, as this is where the cost jeopardy begins and ultimately passes to the end purchaser if the racketeering merchant is successful. Certifying or validating the objection, the complaint or the observation must happen at local authority level. Such objectors cannot be given an opportunity to withdraw their complaint as this can mean they have extorted the money, as we saw from the programme, or they were threatened with legal action. Either way the opportunity has to be stamped out.

Objectors are not the only problem facing the builders. In the case where An Bord Pleanála decisions are judicially reviewed - which is frequently and up to the tune of €10 million the last time I checked - we have seen the board concede on more and more cases recently. We need to take on board the residential zoned land tax, which is also coming into effect in January next year. If this racketeering continues and we see lands caught up in this scenario, they will be caught for the residential zoned land tax. Ultimately that will add more cost, which I will talk about shortly. We need to have everyone singing off the same hymn sheet if this housing crisis is to be solved. I often get the impression, to be fair, that there is no understanding that these issues even exist and particularly now that we have 700 pages of a Bill. This proposed new legislation has not mentioned this practice or dealing with this practice. I have come across no section that does so and I have done my best in such an extensive document. I have also given it to people with much more experience than me and there is nothing here that deals with the issue. For the past decade, builders and developers have been regarded as pariahs, by people inside this House and outside this House. That is the narrative being peddled. In this debate last week it was said that nearly 20 years ago, we were building 90,000 houses and now we are struggling to build 30,000 per annum. The laws were the same 20 years ago.

The Government must sort out the problems, as outlined, in the first instance. That will stop racketeering, prevent extortion, give genuine objectors credibility and go a long way towards giving the certainty the planning process is supposed to give.

We have seen reports in newspapers in recent days about the increased cost of building. Listening to the radio and reading newspaper articles, I learned that in the past three and a half years, a three-bedroom semi-detached house has risen in price by €90,000 in Dublin. That is 23% since 2020, leaving anyone earning less than €127,000, either individually or as a couple, unable to obtain a mortgage if one is required. The same survey stated the cheapest region to purchase a house is the north west, at €354,000. I am pretty sure earnings in the north west do not stretch to that amount to purchase a home or obtain a mortgage.

The survey was carried out by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, SCSI, which states costs have been driven up by a combination of hard costs, such as bricks and mortar, which are up 27%, and soft costs, such as land, development levies, VAT and developers’ margins, which are up 21%. The SCSI says the average cost of a three-bedroom semi-detached home in the private sector is €397,000. I do not think anyone could be surprised by these figures. Why do we have 100,000 units with planning granted but not commenced? According to Mr. Micheál Mahon, who delivered this survey in the media today, viability is the main issue. That is something I have been repeating on the floor of this House for the past 12, if not 18, months. Mr. Mahon said many planning applications for developments that are not commencing were made in 2019 and 2020 and got through the process. It took that length of time. According to the survey, building cost have risen across the board by 23% since 2020. There is the viability issue. It is not rocket science. If we have a viability issue, it is clear we have an affordability issue. On top of this, we will see a planning policy of dezoning lands. Clearly, if we dezone land and make less of it available, it will drive up the cost. That is evident from the survey.

The only good thing I can say happened in the past 12 months was that developer levies at local level were done away with for the 12-month period. Then the Government brought in a 5% concrete levy. One measure counteracts the other. The costs are going up and up so the viability issue is becoming greater and greater. At some point, somebody in government will conclude this will not work. People’s ability to get a mortgage is, with the cost-of-living increases, dwindling. The limit has only recently been increased from three times to four times earnings and it will have to increase it again. This is a vicious circle. The toll increase will drive up costs further. These are simple little things we are not cognisant of.

In its current format, I do not believe I will be voting in favour of the Bill. There are many things the Government could do. It could reduce the VAT rate. Today, the Government’s tax take accounts for 40% of the cost of a new build. Government Members need to think about that.

I welcome the opportunity to debate this important and long-anticipated legislation. The Bill impacts many areas, from housing to roads and from renewable energy to environmental and architectural conservation. Given this is once-in-a-generation legislation, we need to ensure we get it right so we meet the needs of society, enhance economic prosperity, promote a good quality of life and social cohesion and protect the quality of our environment for the benefit of present and future generations.

The key aim of the review was to put plan-making at the centre of the planning system by bringing increased clarity to the legislation and improving the functioning of the system for practitioners and the general public, while protecting public participation, which is a hallmark of the current planning system.

The latest draft includes confirmation of significant changes to the planning system, including new timelines for decision-making, a significant restructuring of An Bord Pleanála and reform of the judicial review system. The scandal that rocked the board last year badly damaged the public reputation of a public body with a long track record of good public service. Statutory timelines for all stages of the planning process and consequential measures are required as there have been significant delays in recent years. Over 30,000 units are stuck in An Bord Pleanála and a further 30,000 units are subject to court proceedings.

Some of my constituents have also experienced considerable delays at local authority level, with complications arising at planning condition compliance stage, post the granting of planning. Significant progress has been made in the past year to address these issues and we will eagerly watch to see if the board's decision-making backlog starts to reduce from January 2024. A crucial requirement to clear this backlog and meet proposed timelines will be adequate resourcing of the planning system across all sectors at national, regional and local levels. Despite this, half of the additional posts sanctioned for An Bord Pleanála have yet to be filled and local authorities have yet to get any additional planning staff. Key to the Bill’s delivery will be how it commences and progresses to ensure that the transition arrangements do not result in lost opportunities for development.

The Bill will seek to further align planning policies directly with Government directives. This means that national planning policies will supersede regional planning policies, which take precedence over local planning policies. This overhaul to how local authority development plans are created includes a requirement to explain to the Department of housing and its Minister the rationale for deviating from the national planning policy guidance. It is hoped that these development plans will lead to an integrated strategy for planning and sustainable development of the areas, including future policies and objectives. This should help to sustain and grow rural areas in the future.

However, with new restrictions being placed on a person’s eligibility to seek a judicial review of a decision, these changes, which will not be subject to public consultation, will have far-reaching negative implications for access to justice. Too often, communities rightly feel excluded or insufficiently equipped to positively shape planning outcomes. Instead, they are forced into a zero-sum conflict on individual planning applications. These changes will make it difficult for citizens, NGOs and communities to challenge planning decisions which affect the environment. For example, a new provision issued by the Minister to local authorities for areas with significant development potential for housing and other purposes, known as urban development zones, will be introduced in the Bill. A framework to develop these zones has been included in the Bill, which regulates each aspect of new development plans. However these plans are not subject to public consultation. In fact, where individuals are concerned, they will need to show they are directly or indirectly materially affected by a planning decision in order to be considered to have sufficient interest to take a judicial review. There is no definition of “materially affected” in the Bill. It will require definition by the courts.

Last Monday, I met a community group in my constituency, which has serious concerns in relation to a proposed development zone. It seems to me that a range of these proposed changes will restrict the number and types of organisations that can access judicial review. The intention behind these changes appears to be to eliminate challenges from residents and community groups and to eliminate long-standing environmental organisations that do not meet the new criteria. Attempting to restrict people's access to the courts to vindicate their rights is not only legally and ethically wrong; it simply will not work. The legal experts who addressed the housing committee made it clear that the real-world impact of the changes proposed in the Bill will lead to an increase in litigation on planning matters.

The failure to engage in public consultation when drafting this Bill is striking. This comprehensive review of Ireland’s planning law has the potential to radically improve and overhaul our planning and land-use system, as well as related court processes. However, in order to achieve this ambition, the public must be given a proper say on such significant changes. Proper recognition needs to be given to the right of communities to have a say in what happens in their local environment.

Some elements of this Bill are most welcome, while it is clear that other sections are problematic and in need of modest amendments. However, there are significant sections that, if enacted as currently written, will make our planning system much worse, leading to more conflict, more poor planning decisions, more litigation and more delays.

I speak as a representative of a constituency where large numbers of people, including families, are renting privately. Many of them are living in fear of losing their homes because of the lack of protection for renters.

This week we heard from the Residential Tenancies Board about shocking increases in rents despite the fact that most of the country is under rent pressure zones. Demand has been driven by population increases, new household formations, inward migration, holiday lets and the proliferation of high-income industries such as tech. The dearer rents in Louth reflect the trend in the Dublin commuter counties, where rents rose 10.2% year-on-year, reflecting a very low availability. When faced with an acute shortage of rental homes, which shows little sign of abating, this must serve as a wake-up call to the Government to work together to come up with innovative ideas for the provision of more homes. Crucial to addressing this is ensuring a supply of more houses and the building of more homes. Nothing in the Bill indicates that the historical under-resourcing and understaffing of our planning system is being addressed. If we are putting in new statutory obligations and timeframes, we need to invest the necessary resources or we will undermine credibility in the new system and people's belief in its capacity to deliver on the changes.

We are all very conscious that the planning process has a key impact on addressing the two major crises faced by our country today. We need to move to a planning system based on early and meaningful public participation that gives planning authorities, public and private developers, and communities the clarity and certainty they need. We need robust and effective planning laws in order to deliver the urgently needed increased supply of housing and the necessary infrastructure to enable us to develop our renewable energy sources and meet our climate change targets.

I am going to go to my clinic tomorrow morning, and many people who come in to my clinics have problems around planning and housing. I have families coming in to me and they are not allowed to build next to their parents, who are sick. Every time we ring up the planners and ask what the problem is, it makes no sense whatsoever. Maybe the local authorities are right or maybe they are wrong in the way they treat us politicians. If one rings up, the first thing they will say is go and see their agent, and that it is their agent that is looking after it at the moment. The only reason they come to politicians is that they feel as though we can maybe intervene. I know we cannot intervene but they are not going to explain exactly what is wrong.

For example, for years the local needs issue has been a very big problem in County Louth, and it is still a major problem. The situation at the moment is that the only place to build in towns like Dundalk and Drogheda is in the rural areas, and people who come from rural areas want to stay in the rural areas. They do not want to come into the town. They want to continue on with the lifestyle they have had over the past number of years. The system we have at the moment is wrong. Do the local authorities have any accountability? For example, if we go to make a complaint about a decision that has been made, a lot of people cannot afford to go to An Bord Pleanála. If one goes to An Bord Pleanála at the moment with the shortage of staff, it could go on for months. We organise a lot of pre-planning meetings in County Louth. One goes and talks to the planners, and they give an indication that one is going to get planning permission. Next thing, the big shock comes out that one does not.

I must put in a PQ over the next number of weeks to see how many people in County Louth have been refused planning permission in rural parts of the county. I think we will be shocked by the number of people. The communication line is wrong at the moment. We have an opportunity to get it right and I hope the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, get it right.

I welcome the opportunity to speak, and I welcome the Bill. It is a fundamental piece of legislation and has been a long time coming. The volume and depth of the legislation shows the challenges that are right across the planning issue in urban and rural Ireland. There have been many thoughts in the contributions by many Members over the last while regarding serial objectors to planning, and people objecting to planning who are many miles, and hundreds of miles, away from the location. That is fundamental. There is almost a begrudgery or a sense of, "We know it all, so we are going to put in an objection". We have seen the serial objector to forestry roads, forestry felling licences and forestry thinning. By and large, he has brought the forestry industry to a standstill by his objections to it, and caused massive difficulties for the forestry industry because sitting in his plush south Dublin home, he was able to put in objections right across the country. That is happening with housing development as well. We have to ensure if there are objections being put in, that objectors have skin in the game, that they are near it and that it is impacting directly on them.

We have had a number of issues in planning, and the way planning has developed. The last planning and development Bill that was before this House in the early noughties was to reform existing planning. In the earlier stages of it, it did ensure that there was planning. However, now we have it tied up. If one is building a once-off house in the Duhallow region, or as the Minister of State would be quite familiar with, the Charleville region, there is a large amount of regulations they have to go through in comparison to eight or ten years ago, regarding environmental issues and so forth. We had planning that was granted by the local authority back seven or eight years ago and it lapsed because of one thing or another, and then we cannot reactivate that planning permission because the local authority says it is in a flood zone. We have seen the challenges with flood zones in different parts of the country over the last 12 months and I understand that. However, if there are areas of the country that are going to be designated as flood zones, they must genuinely be so. There must not be an abstract circle or corridor drawn around areas, in some instances miles from the water stream, never mind where the flood plain is. The hands of officials are tied and they are saying it is a flood plain, so therefore they cannot touch it.

I have one instance, which is a very genuine case, and the flood plain was drawn. Now the flood plain has been deactivated because they looked at it again and saw the error of their ways. However, because this notion is out there in the ether that there is or was a flood plain, they are very slow to move on it but it is very important that it is done.

We had very welcome news about the development of the M20 from Limerick to Cork last Monday week, and the progress that is being made by TII, headed by the offices of Limerick County Council. Along that route, people have gone for planning permission, and it has been held up because it was a study corridor or region of interest due to the road. Now we have seen that they have exactly identified the 200 m corridor that is going to affect it. There are people who are living and working there, some of them working on farms, some in the communities. It is a strong industrial place, with a lot of work and employment. They have gone for planning and it has been held up. Everybody who is interpreting planning legislation and law has to be very mindful of the part they are playing in ensuring people have a connection to or are going to live in that community, that there is going to be a population increase in that community, and that it is not just of the book but that there has to be a social cohesion aspect to planning as well.

How is it that in some instances, some planners can take a different interpretation of the exact same law or term of regulations? We hope that this legislation will streamline it in such a way as to make it uniform. Of course, I see the Ceann Comhairle shaking his head in utter-----

That is true, yes. The reality is that if we set down a set of guidelines in this document, we would expect that there would be uniformity right across the country. That might be an aspiration too far but I do not think it is unreasonable to ask that we would have a solid and absolute interpretation of the regulations in it.

Over the years, and in many discussions we have had about one-off houses, we have heard about the urbanisation of Ireland, that it all had to be in the cities and had to be all critical mass. I remember in 2001, An Taisce launched a broadsheet that it was going to object to all one-off houses because it would be unviable for An Post to deliver the post to one-off houses around the country. This was the line it was bringing out at that-----

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for that. It is because this planning legislation will be fundamental to the interpretation of planning across the country in urban and rural Ireland. It is important that we discuss various types of housing, whether one-off houses, housing estates or apartments, because they will all be decided upon based on this legislation. My point is that 20 years ago, people took to objecting to one-off houses and look where we are now with a housing crisis. Urban areas have grown beyond managing in terms of services, infrastructure, schools and social cohesion. The model in rural communities was better with social services, services for people who were less well-off and services for people with additional needs; we served them better in rural communities. We should look at planning in the round and ensure it is about how people can live the best lives possible. We can take this huge Bill and say it is just about planning objections or An Bord Pleanála or anything else; in fact it is about how we plan our population spread. For 20 or 25 years, there was urbanisation and a lot of development on the east coast. We must now look to the west coast and rural communities because of the population increase. That is desperately welcome. I have seen small schools in my area with three or four extra teachers because families relocated during Covid and have seen the benefit of it. If somebody says the once-off houses in rural Ireland are not allowed in this plan, it is all about every aspect of planning and making sure people are content where they live and can contribute to society. I come from a rural area and I believe in the ethos of rural Ireland, where people of all backgrounds can blend in and have a full life. I want that to continue for this generation, the next and in the future. Our communities have become diverse, which we welcome because it has added enormously to them. To go back to objections, there were one or two serial objectors in my area to one-off houses on very frivolous matters. When it went to the bord, it was held up for two years and the families could not keep going. They had moneys tied down and they had to give up. If we are being realistic, the genesis of this Bill is about serial objections and ensuring that does not happen in the future.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his indulgence on this very welcome legislation. I hope it will go through the House as soon as possible because it is important for proper planning procedures. A science would help rather than an art, as it was aptly put by the Ceann Comhairle.

And consistency.

I welcome the Minister of State and his officials to the House and thank the officials who are not here who have been working on the planning Bill. It is an enormous piece of work and an enormous amount of time went into it. It is a timely review that irons out the kinks, for want of a better word, or contradictions in the existing legislation which led to a lot of judicial reviews and court challenges. This is important, timely and necessary legislation. Resourcing must follow the plans in this legislation. To give a figure from my local authority, Donegal County Council will need about 24 extra staff members to deal with the different responsibilities and accountabilities in this legislation. The resources must follow. Duplication has been taken out of this legislation. It is plan-led decision making. From my contact with some of the planning officials in my local authority area, it streamlines it to an extent and takes out the grey areas.

That is where I leave the planning Bill. I wish to raise an issue concerning a planning development in my parish, which was agreed upon with the Department and local authority in 2018. There was a €3 million announcement. It went through the planning processes; it was a turnkey development. The planning authority was happy with all of the requirements and specifications. Everything was going in the right direction in 2018. Those houses could have been built today, only there was no streamlining of communication or co-ordination between the local authority and Irish Water. Irish Water has designed the sewage-treatment plant and, in fairness to the local authority, it will not put in 34 extra houses in a small village unless the required sewage-treatment plant is in place. That is acceptable. We have been waiting all that time for Irish Water to put a contractor on site and do that work. It has not happened. The designs are complete - all it requires is that the contractors be appointed. I would like the Minister of State, be it himself or through his officials, to make formal contact tonight with Irish Water to try to expedite that situation. He should not be doing that and it should not require me standing up here tonight. Is it a competency of the Custom House and the officials in the Department of local government? There will be an argument that it is not its job to ensure progress is made with a competency outside of its control but the question I raised is perhaps there will be an opportunity to address it at some stage. It is not in the 710 pages of this planning Bill, as far as I am aware. Should there be oversight in ensuring developments progress? There will be different service providers at different junctures in a planning process which, for one reason or another, will hold up specific projects. Perhaps there is an opportunity in this planning legislation to ensure that oversight to move things along pro-actively, progressively and in the right manner. Meanwhile - this is where I digress from the planning Bill - one family, as many families on the housing list, in my parish and environs have been waiting in hope for five years.

There are families whose lives have been put on hold for five years in the hope these houses would be going ahead. They now know it will be another two to three years. What do I tell the particular young family I am thinking about? Their child has recently been in Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin. They are paying high rent because it is in a rent pressure zone at the moment. It is a successful tourism location. Accommodation is at a premium. Airbnb is on the increase. What do I tell that family, whom I told with excitement five years ago that there will be houses in this area? There will be a great opportunity for many local people to get houses, because there will be 34 houses in a small village. It is a positive story for the area. What do I tell that family? Do I tell them they have to wait another two or three years? That is not a good place to be. I should not be raising this issue tonight, but I am raising it. I know the Minister of State's bona fides in terms of his personal approach to politics. I know he will take this issue and deal with it personally, and I know his officials will too. I may have been remiss down the years. Sometimes when a piece of legislation with 700 plus pages comes before the Dáil, we maybe do not give enough credit to the people who burn the midnight oil and put in that effort. They work diligently, both legalistically and not just churning our legislation for the sake of it. The previous legislation was good legislation. However, once legislation is presented gaps and contradictions can unfortunately appear. As I said earlier, that is why we have so many judicial reviews on the planning side. There will no doubt be other legal challenges with this legislation, but sometimes we have to look at the personal situation. At the end of the day, TDs or Senators in these Houses, or county councillors all have the one mission as politicians. We are all trying to make life that bit easier for people who are in difficulty. At the moment there are a lot of people waiting for houses to be built. Let us fast-track them, but look at a proactive way to ensure there is monitoring and oversight to ensure projects are moving okay within one service provider. If there are hitches in another let us look at trying to move that forward in a better way.

I am sorry to disappoint the Ceann Comhairle by speaking solely to the Bill. To be fair to Deputy McHugh he is speaking to a matter pertinent to the Bill and some absences from Part 7 of the Bill, which I will come to. He raises an important issue and I am glad the Ceann Comhairle gave him the time to do so, because it is absolutely within the scope of the legislation. I start by saying that in having a debate about reform of the planning system, it is important the debate is evidence based. I am not commenting on anybody who has spoken since last week during the Second Stage debate. As a more general comment, some of the debate in the public arena about our planning system is too often not grounded in fact or reality. Ideas take hold, which can sometimes inform the policy process in a bad way. I say that because I sometimes hear people say our planning system is completely broken. That is just not true. Many aspects of our planning system function, and function well. Every year planning permissions are granted for between 30,000 and 40,000 new homes. There are currently approximately 100,000 new homes with live planning permission, which have not been commenced. Many people have an experience of the planning system that is functioning and working well. That does not mean everything is perfect and that is why we are dealing with the issues in front of us. Parts of our planning system need modest improvement, some parts need significant improvement, but we need to make sure those improvements are based in fact. When I hear Deputies raising legitimate concerns, for example, about the lack of clarity from our local authorities about rural housing I think they are right. However, rather than naming An Taisce as the problem, they might look towards Government and the very long delayed rural planning guidelines, which I believe are actually complete, but are too politically controversial to be released at this point. That is not a comment on the current Minister. I would have said the same thing to his predecessor, and that person's predecessor. Those regulations are long delayed.

I would be more than happy to do so. Likewise, I hear people raise legitimate concerns about the lack of clarity for local authorities with respect to wind farms on land. That is not this Department. It is the Department of communications in conjunction with this Department. They have long delayed the release of much anticipated guidelines about wind farms. Sometimes, people find other people to blame for the problems they legitimately raise, when often the responsibility for that confusion rests closer to home.

At the outset, I repeat one of the key guiding principles for our party in approaching planning reform. My colleague, Deputy Louise O'Reilly, said the following in setting out the party's overall position on the Bill at the start of Second Stage. I want to say it again. In judging all planning legislation that comes before us, we are looking to see if that legislation assists us in making good quality planning decisions based on meaningful public participation in a timely manner that allows us to meet the social, economic, environmental and biodiversity needs of our State. For me that sums up what we need our planning system to do. I was one of the first politicians to be able to respond publicly to Monday night's "RTÉ Investigates" programme on planning, alongside the Minister of State, Deputy Josepha Madigan. I say at the outset that I have been involved in discussions about housing and planning for a decade. Not once has any builder or developer - I meet a lot of them - ever told me they had been asked for money to have a planning appeal withdrawn. Many have complained about planning observations and appeals. I was genuinely shocked by the revelations, and the audacity of the individuals involved, to seek significant sums of money to withdraw completely fraudulent and groundless appeals to An Bord Pleanála. On television that night I called for a robust Garda investigation. I believe it is extortion under the Criminal Justice Act and I would like to see those people prosecuted. That is a matter for An Garda Síochána and the courts and I will not comment on it further. I will also say that those people could only do what they did because it currently takes between 12 and 24 months for a decision from the bord. That is the responsibility of a decade of underfunding of our planning authorities, in particular An Bord Pleanála, as well as some very bad legislative decisions by Deputies Simon Coveney and Darragh O'Brien, and former Deputy Eoghan Murphy. I will come to those in a moment.

If the Government wants to play a useful role in this, let us remove the opportunity for potential extortionists to extort money from good builder developers by fixing those other problems. Some of that is contained in this Bill, and I will acknowledge it when I get to it.

I also acknowledge the considerable volume of work put into this legislation by the long-suffering officials in the planning section of the Department of housing. This has been an extraordinarily long and onerous task. I make clear that any criticisms I make are not of officials in the Department, or indeed of any public officials working in this House. I have criticisms to make, but I level them at the Government and not the officials, who have spent an inordinate amount of time engaging with us on the Oireachtas housing committee, as well as on the Bill itself. We thank them for that. Rather than just repeat the speech made by Deputy O'Reilly on Thursday last week, I will make some comments on the process and respond to the Minister's and other contributions from that Second Stage debate last Thursday. I then want to get into a little more detail about some of the issues raised by my colleagues.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien said last week, and again today, that we criticised this Bill for being rushed. Not once have I said such a thing on the public record. Along with the entire Oireachtas committee I have repeatedly asked that the Bill should not be rushed. I am happy to say it has not been, and I hope that continues. However, it has been a remarkable period. When the Minister announced at the start of 2022 that the Bill would be published in September 2022, I remember sitting in the Oireachtas housing committee. The senior official, who has now retired, gave us that timeline and I told her that I was amazed she was able to say it with a straight face. Nobody believed the Bill would be ready by September last year. I was further surprised when we were told the Bill would be ready by January or February of this year, which it was not. We got it in partial form. I was again surprised when the Minister said the Bill would be published in September and be through the House by the end of the year.

That was never going to happen. I say this only because it would be better for everybody if we are straight in saying that this is complex legislation that will take some time to work through. However long is needed, let us take the time necessary to get it right.

It is important to put on the record that the Bill is not yet finished. The officials gave us a detailed explanation in a private session as to what the further changes will be. The Minister put some of them on the record last week. I assume some of the changes are significant and will need Cabinet approval. It is important to note that we do not have the final Bill, which means some of the sections that will be introduced by way of amendments will not have gone through any Oireachtas scrutiny at all. I am particularly concerned by the lack of scrutiny of the transitional mechanisms. We can deal with that if and when we get to Committee Stage.

Other Members raised concerns regarding the explanatory memorandum and the Oireachtas Library and Research Service paper. To be clear, I am not making a single criticism of the drafting of those documents. However, when we ask officials to undertake very heavy work in truncated timelines, which is a demand of the political system, it creates challenges for those of us on this side of the House in trying to grapple with the legislation on Second Stage and beyond. I would have liked to have seen, as requested by many of the people who gave testimony to the committee, a consolidated version of this Bill where it is very clear what provision is existing, what is existing but moderately modified and what is new and significant. Sometimes, we get that in respect of EU legislation. It is a shame we did not get it in this instance. If such a thing does exist, which it may not, I would like it to be shared with us.

Both Deputies Bacik and Cian O'Callaghan made some very important points on land use, democratic accountability and unintended consequences of aspects of the legislation, which I want to reinforce. It was clear from the substance of last week's debate that there is a lot more work to do on this legislation. I hate saying that because I am sure the officials start to panic at the idea that it is not near completion. If we are going to get this right and do what the Government is saying is the intention of the Bill, then a significant volume of work needs to be done in committee. I hope adequate time is given on Committee Stage to work through the issues. I look forward to working with the Minister and Minister of State on that.

If I were to summarise the Bill, I would say it may not be the good, the bad and the ugly but it certainly is the good, the moderately problematic, the very problematic and the absent. My remaining comments relate to those four areas. I strongly welcome the proposed changes to An Bord Pleanála in line with the Planning Regulator's report. The governance proposals and the statutory timelines are absolutely sensible in principle and in practice. I am keen to hear more detail on Committee Stage on the logic for the different types of timelines. I understand the general principle but it will be useful to go through all of that. While the Minister has given sanction for additional posts at An Bord Pleanála, only 50 staff have been employed. The remainder have not yet been appointed. Oonagh Buckley told Members of the Oireachtas before she departed to her new position that at least another 30 staff on top of the extra sanction would be required. I hope the Government is giving serious consideration to that.

I fully support the thrust of the Bill in its move towards greater use of plan making. The detail of the urban area plans, the priority area plans and the co-ordinated area plans are not clear enough. I am not saying they need to be changed in the legislation but we do need greater discussion. Ultimately, we need to move increasingly towards three-dimensional planning, like what we have, for example, with strategic development zones. That is not just a matter of legislation; it is also a matter of policy and, crucially, a matter of resources. I am very keen to see the plan the Minister alluded to that will provide our planning authorities with the extra 530-odd staff they requested last year for existing functions, plus the year-on-year increase that will be required for the implementation of those sections of the Bill.

Those are the good bits of the legislation. I turn now to the moderately problematic bits. On the development plans, I have no issue with ten-year timelines. I am glad to see some shift in terms of the strengthening of the mid-term review. That is welcome but I would like to see it going further, which I will deal with when we get to amendments. Likewise, there is a real missed opportunity in the housing plan section of the Bill, which is broadly, if I am reading it right, a crossover from what was there before. We have real problems in terms of the targets, which are far too low. I would like to see local authorities have a far greater ability to argue for increased targets above what the Government is proposing, particularly for social and affordable homes. There are aspects of planning legislation that could assist with affordability. Again, we will tease that out on Committee Stage.

Ultimately, whether in respect of public or private housing, we need to get to a position where our planning system is judging planning applications on the extent to which they meet the local housing need as set out in the granular detail of an effective housing needs demand assessment tool. That is particularly important for groups of people who are often excluded from our housing system, including those with special needs or disabilities, wheelchair users, people who need downsizing and right-sizing, etc. We need a planning system that does not just judge an application on the physical structure or the physical structure's relationship to its built environment, but whether those structures actually meet housing need on the basis of evidence that is there. We are moving some way towards that but we need to move much further.

Let me move to the very bad bits of the Bill. Among the worst things Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have done to our planning system in recent years were Simon Coveney's disastrous strategic housing legislation, the really badly thought through mandatory ministerial guidelines on building heights and design standards for apartments and, while I was a strong supporter of the large-scale residential development, LRD, legislation - in fact, we argued for something similar in 2016 - the transitional mechanisms for those who wanted to enter into SHD have wreaked havoc and are one of the major causes for the current delay at An Bord Pleanála. I can only read the planning policy statement sections of the Bill, setting out the expedited procedures to retrospectively rework them into development plans, in one way. What I am expecting to see in the transitional mechanisms is, that having got all of this so badly wrong but wanting to do the same thing, which is an increased centralisation and imposition of planning policy from the top down, the Government will now try to do it in a much more detailed way.

The problem with that is that it misunderstands the issue. I do not dispute for a second that the Government has a responsibility and a right to set central government policy. That is a very important thing but it should be not only discussed but debated in this House. Currently, if the Government wants to change planning law, it does what we are doing here. If it wants to change planning regulations, a motion comes to the House, there is scrutiny in committee and the motion then comes back here. What is being proposed in this Bill, however, would give a Minister, with the approval of Government but with no Oireachtas oversight or approval, the power to make profound changes to what is, in effect, planning law. The measures in question might be called policy but they are planning law. That is unacceptable. Equally, there is no clarity in terms of the range or scope of what those policy statements should be. Representatives of the Irish Planning Institute, which is a very cautious body that represents a broad spectrum of planning professionals in the public and private sectors, were very critical of this lack of definition when they appeared before the committee. They argued for the legislation to be changed to make it clear what is the function of central government, particularly in terms of forward planning in our system, and what are the functions and principles of subsidiarity to our local authorities in terms of development management. Unless we get that correct, the Government is opening itself up to yet another round of very significant levels of conflict between different layers of plans and different actors in the planning system. What happens when there are conflicts in the planning system? They all end up in the courts, with enormous delay, which is the very opposite of what the Government says it wants.

The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is very keen to use these sections to advance the delivery of renewable energy, including solar and onshore and offshore wind. I 100% want to work with him to achieve those renewable energy targets, which are absolutely key. My fear is that the Minister, who did not live through the appalling messes in the planning system created by Simon Coveney on SHDs and Eoghan Murphy with his two sets of very controversial mandatory ministerial guidelines, is making the same mistake. He thinks he can just impose all of this from the top without creating conflict, litigation and delay. That is very dangerous. In fact, if we want to expedite offshore wind, which I passionately want to do, let us get the marine protected areas legislation fast-tracked. Without that, the scope for conflict and judicial review in respect of offshore wind development is enormous.

To be clear, if things end up in judicial review, that is a failure of the planning system. I want to see far fewer judicial reviews.

I do not think they are a good thing. The Minister mentioned, in his opening remarks last week, a significant increase in judicial reviews. He is right. The overwhelming majority of that increase is in housing. It was through SHD, and conflicts between mandatory ministerial guidelines and city and county development plans. The vast majority of the judicial reviews that were taken were won, and the bord lost, costing, as Deputy Verona Murphy mentioned earlier, €10 million in legal fees annually over the last number of years.

If we want fewer judicial reviews, what is the best way to achieve it? It is to fix the problem. We should not restrict people's access to the courts because it will not work. The legal professionals from the Bar Council and the Law Society told us it will just lead to increased satellite litigation, increased superior court litigation and further delay. If we fix the problems upstream, fix the conflicts between the various levels of planning law and policy and ensure maximum public participation at the earliest possible stage, we will see, as we are beginning to see with the LRD, a significant drop in the number of judicial reviews taken in large-scale residential developments. Why? Because instead of trying to ram them through SHD, and with questionable mandatory ministerial guideline frameworks, we are doing it the way we used to do before. Before SHD, it was virtually unheard of to have a judicial review of a large residential development, yet from 2020 the number ballooned. I am hoping now that they will begin to recede. That is why a lot of residential developers, including Michael O'Flynn on "The Frontline" the other night and Stephen Garvey earlier this year, are actually saying we should be careful what we do with residential development in this Bill because LRD is beginning to work. Let us see how it goes and then move on.

Finally, on what is missing in the Bill, there is almost nothing on climate. Embodied carbon is the fourth largest contributor to our emissions. We rapidly need changes to our planning system in terms of demolition, reuse and embodied carbon. That is a big omission. It is not a criticism of the officials, but the Government and the Department are way behind the curve on that. The absence of any significant reforms of compulsory purchase order, particularly for the State to buy at below-market value, existing use or existing use plus a margin, as well as land hoarding, as was mentioned by Deputy Bacik, is a missed opportunity. I mentioned disabilities earlier. This was an opportunity to insert the planning recommendations of the expert group on Traveller accommodation. They might not be popular, but they are absolutely necessary if we are going to avoid another Carrickmines. They are not there and they should be. Earlier, my colleague, Deputy Ó Snodaigh, mentioned the very significant omissions of aspects in relation to Gaeltachtaí and the Irish language. Conradh na Gaeilge has been in touch and we will bring amendments with respect to that.

While they might be small issues, community gardens and allotments, something that we raised at the committee and were told would be addressed, are not addressed. I would hope that is going to be addressed in the Minister's amendments. If not, we have a problem.

To conclude, we need a planning system that works. We need a planning system that makes good quality planning decisions based on meaningful public participation in a timely manner to meet the social needs of our society, including houses, schools, hospitals, etc. We need a planning system that meets the economic needs of our society in terms of physical infrastructure and buildings for job creation, that helps us tackle climate change and also halts and reverses the biodiversity crisis. The Government has said it wants to work with us on it. That will be a first in planning legislation since I have been here, but we will take the Government at its word. The test will be whether or not it accepts our amendments on Committee Stage or reworks those amendments for Report Stage. We will judge it by what it does, not by what it says, but we will be very constructive in the time ahead.

Tá áthas orm labhairt ar an mBille seo, an Bille um Pleanáil agus Forbairt 2023. This Bill is a mammoth piece of legislation that would require a researcher to review with any kind of thoroughness. I accept the basic objectives of the Bill include the facilitation of reforms around improved consistency and alignment throughout all tiers of planning. That is certainly to be welcomed. The second objective is significant restructuring and resourcing of An Bord Pleanála, which will be renamed an coimisiún pleanála. The third is increased certainty across the planning system through the introduction of statutory timelines for decision-making, including, for the first time, an coimisiún pleanála. Finally, there will be new strategic ten-year development plans for local authorities. All of these are worthy objectives, and if they materialise then we will certainly be in a much better place than we are now.

We have all seen how planning dysfunction has led to paralysis in so many areas, from housing, to forestry, to roads, to service provision. Serial objectors were crippling the forestry sector, which is a sector that employs 10,000 people in the State. I welcome any Bill that would address serial objectors. Each time I attend the IBEC meetings, I hear that serial objections are putting investment in jeopardy. In cases where there are serial objectors and investors coming in, the investments are being jeopardised, which can cost us jobs. We also have to think of our economy and, indeed, protect it. I welcome any Bill that is going to address all of that. I feel that it would be good for Ireland, and that we will certainly attract more investment, if people know that when they come here to invest, they will have a clear route and there will not be as many obstructions. That is certainly to be welcomed.

The current process is cumbersome and deeply discriminatory. We see it also with reference to rural planning, which has been mentioned a number of times already. Indeed, it has been more than a year since I raised rural planning matters at Leaders' Questions with the former Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath. He confirmed to me, at that point, that the revised rural housing guidelines for planning authorities would be published within the next month or six weeks at the latest, yet there is still massive uncertainty around the kind of flexibility that rural families are looking for. We know, for example, that the revised and updated guidelines have been eagerly awaited since 2017, when a working group was established within the Department of housing to examine the issue of rural housing, including so-called one-off housing. Instead, we have had to rely on institutions such as the Supreme Court to provide clarity on rural planning issues. We saw this in its decision in the Glanbia case, which I described as a victory of common sense against the overzealous and inflexible attitude of environmental NGOs which do not understand, nor want to understand, how rural Ireland and farming operate.

I have repeatedly highlighted, in this House and in my constituency, the delays that took place with respect to the proposed multimillion euro investment at the Banagher Chilling factory in County Offaly. This is a prime example of delays in planning and An Bord Pleanála making a decision putting a project, which involved huge investment, in jeopardy. I expressed serious concern over that. In that instance, it was clear that An Bord Pleanála was simply not fulfilling its statutory obligations, particularly when it came to section 126 of the Planning and Development Act, which provides that every planning appeal is to be determined within 18 weeks. There are huge issues around that. I really do hope that this Bill will address that. I know that An Bord Pleanála and additional resources are mentioned in the Bill. Hopefully, the new name will be a new start, and the extra resources will ensure that decisions are made within the statutory timeframe. I would wholeheartedly welcome that, as I am sure those building one-off housing and investors would.

We do not need, as I once pointed out, a library shelf of EU regulations. We need a much more simplified system, because the one we have is not working. If this Bill achieves that and if it creates a system that is clear and less bureaucratic, I certainly will be very happy, but I have to say that I have serious doubts given our history of planning legislation. I do hope that there is going to be a change. I will certainly be one of the many who will be welcoming these changes.

I have placed a bundle of documents in front of me to give to context to what we are being asked to do. I would be misleading the Dáil if I said I have read the Bill. I have done my best to read around it and to read the memorandum. I thank the Library and Research team for producing two digests under extreme pressure.

I want to thank the staff in the Department before I absolutely criticise this Bill. I have serious concerns about it, but certainly not about the staff.

I make my comments today in the context of yesterday's report about the tipping point for our climate. Two hundred scientists said we are at a pivotal moment for humanity and they outline five major things already at risk of crossing tipping points at the present level of global warming, namely, the Greenland ice sheet; the west Antarctic ice sheet; warm water coral reefs; North Atlantic subpolar gyre circulation; and permafrost thaw. That serious warning yesterday is the context. I have searched in vain for recognition that we are facing an existential crisis on climate change and biodiversity although we declared an emergency, I think back in 2019.

I also despair of the narrative that accompanies this Bill, which again is no reflection on the staff but an absolute reflection on Government spokespeople and certain backbenchers who continually reiterate the narrative that the planning system is in trouble because of objectors. I do not know any such word as an objector. I spent 17 years of my life at local level. The people I know put in submissions at great cost to themselves. It takes huge effort to put in a written submission. We never made provision for oral submissions. I have never met someone who was an objector for sake of being an objector. Perhaps I am a little innocent in view of the RTÉ programme the other night. I have only met concerned residents and concerned citizens at the end of their tether. If TDs were honest in this regard, they would agree with me on that.

I think there is a title there "a solution in search of a problem" which I will come back to. I am not sure why we do a regulatory impact analysis. I know there is no option and we have to. I do not want the Minister of State to come back and tell us we are legally obliged. My difficulty relates to the do-nothing option or do something and the cost. When it was finally published, the benefit of option 1 - the do-nothing option - was that the majority of Planning and Development Act 2000 is considered to be working efficiently as is and well understood. Option 1 does not require any phased implementation of new policies. One would wonder why we have produced this Bill. Part of it is to do with the open door that different lobby groups have had to this Government and to successive governments. In collusion with the Government, they have put forward the narrative that the biggest problem with strategic housing developments are objectors with absolutely no evidence of that.

On 6 December I received an answer to a parliamentary question on lack of capacity and lack of planners in the system. It stated "The LGMA submitted a report entitled Business Case for Resources for the Planning Function of Local Authorities in 2022 [imagine it had to go to the trouble of putting forward a business case] which identified a shortfall of over 500 staff". Can you imagine trying to run an effective planning system? Notwithstanding that, the regulatory impact analysis tells us it did pretty well. That is a testimony to the staff who are there despite a shortage of 500 staff.

The Office of the Planning Regulator made a submission to the pre-legislative scrutiny stage. It stated:

As the Department’s own analysis has shown, [which we are not privy to, of course] the planning service as it were is likely under-resourced by probably a third in headcount terms and with fee income not having been revised since 2001, our planning service is chronically underfunded.

The historic and structural underfunding of our planning processes is all the more remarkable when one considers how central the planning process is to building anything in this country – homes – infrastructure – schools – flood defences – renewable energy infrastructure.

It goes on to make a range of points, some of which I agree with and some of which I do not. It points out it does not agree with imposing fines for delays in the statutory limits.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of it, I mention climate change because now more than anything we need the active participation of residents and citizens. In my experience change has come from those committed people on the ground. I believe the national climate mitigation plan was taken to court by the Friends of the Irish Environment. We can only learn from those in that organisation. They put that stress on themselves and the court upheld their application and found that citizens were entitled to know what was in the law and the mitigation plan was held to be invalid.

As TDs we are trying to do our best because we constantly remind ourselves that we are here to legislate. This is the third largest piece of legislation in the history of the State comprising 712 pages, 22 Parts - we know there are further Parts to come which have not been subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny - 501 sections and six Schedules. The explanatory memorandum is 124 pages long. The legislation will affect all our lives in areas such as housing, roads, renewable energy, environmental and architectural conservation, and very importantly, access to justice in planning matters, which I will come back to because that is exactly what we are restricting and reducing. The briefing note from the Department states that one of the primary objectives is to bring clarity, consistency and certainty. We used to talk about the three Rs; now we are talking about the three Cs and an additional one, coherence.

The whole idea is to save time. As one of the previous speakers said, the planning system is a mess and there are delays. As I have pointed out, one of the major delays is with lack of resources and staff. Regarding a particular appointment to An Bord Pleanála, that is a reflection on the Minister who appointed the person at the time and did not seem to recognise when one might have conflict of interest or not. However, that has gone through the criminal courts and has been dealt with. None of that was caused by the good staff who work in An Bord Pleanála.

We come along with this legislation and we change the title. I see absolutely no reason for changing the title of An Bord Pleanála. We all know it; even people with little Irish know it and they say it proudly. It was a body that we had trust in. I did not agree with all its decisions but we had trust in it. We knew there was a second tier. We knew when decisions were rushed at local level because of lack of staff or extraordinary pressure on staff, there was a second tier to look at it.

Even though we are talking about saving time here by reducing the participation of the public, we then have this documentation from the Department's regulatory impact analysis claiming we are actually expanding public participation. For God's sake - or the goddess or whoever one believes in - how could we possibly say that we are expanding the opportunities for public participation when we are doing the complete opposite? There might be with the preparations plans, the ten-year plans for local authorities and so on; I have no difficulty with that at all. However, I have the most serious difficulty with the twisting of language when it comes to claiming we are expanding the role of residents and people who are interested when we are doing quite the opposite.

Going back to the three Cs, the former Chief Justice has told us - unfortunately he hopes that he does not have to say he told us so - that it will lead to further litigation. All of the contributions I have read tell me that this Bill will lead to further litigation, what is called satellite litigation, because of the confusion, because of the failure to define terms precisely, and because it is centring power in the hands of whoever the Minister will be on the day, leaving a huge amount of power for regulations and so on and that this will be challenged.

Nowhere in this have I seen the context given of climate catastrophe and how planning has to deal with that and allow maximum participation. Nowhere have I seen the Aarhus Convention set out, which was signed by us in 1998 and ratified in 2012. I have had my office do a word check on it. I think the Aarhus Convention and what it is are specifically mentioned 11 times, but there is no overall setting out of the obligations on us under the Aarhus Convention, which we ratified in 2012. It is certainly going to be challenged on that basis alone. That has become part of European law and part of our law. I would have thought, somewhere in those vast 700 pages, it would have been set out and that we would have learned that much by now. There is not a mention of it.

I keep an eye on the cost of tribunals, and two in particular relate to planning. The Tribunal of Inquiry into certain Payments to Politicians and Related Matters concluded and we are up at €67 million for it. I will skip all the others because they are not relevant to planning. That was the Moriarty tribunal. The Mahon tribunal, from 1997 to 2004, cost more than €142 million, and it is ongoing. Of course, this has nothing to do with that, but with the importance of the public participating, as set out in the Aarhus Convention, by getting maximum information, maximum participation in the decision-making process, and access to justice in the courts. In fact, the judge - I cannot remember his name - in one of these tribunals is quoted as saying we need maximum accountability and participation because corruption blossoms in the dark. Yet, what we are doing here is reducing it, against all the submissions that have come in.

We champion Science Foundation Ireland through regular contributions in the House by various Deputies, and we have Science Week. We should base our decisions on evidence. There is a complete lack of evidence here as to why we need to change the judicial review process and restrict further the ordinary person’s access to it. I have not seen it set out anywhere. What I have seen, however, is that the judicial reviews are minimal. They are something like 3% to 5% annually, as set out by the Office of the Planning Regulator and the different environmental groups. A narrative that judicial reviews are causing the problem is completely false, misleading and against everything I stand for, particularly in a Dáil that prides itself on Science Week and basing decisions on evidence.

I will probably not be here for the Minister of State’s concluding remarks, but I will read them. Maybe he could set out the rationale that has led the Government to restrict judicial reviews and on what basis it has done this, bearing in mind that those submissions have repeatedly itemised the previous occasions on which the Government tried to do this. The first was in 2000 when it attempted to get rid of the ex parte. It had to put it back in 2010. The Government also had to do something similar with asylum and immigration cases where the narrative was they were clogging up the system. The reality was the Government had to reinstate it. Here we are in 2023 getting rid of the ex parte, which acts as a filter system. It allows barristers and solicitors to bring forward bona fide cases and is the only avenue open to the people on the ground, and the Government is restricting that.

With a sop to the Green Party, the Government is setting up an administrative scheme that, however it is set up, will be in the hands of the Minister and the Government and taken from the courts. I put my trust in the courts any day in the awarding of costs, the withholding of costs or their analysis of whether there is a substantive case to go forward for judicial review. The Government is restricting all of that.

The Government is also restricting the declaration of whether a development is an exempted development. Again, that has been cited in the court. As it was, and the Government is making it worse, anyone, whether the neighbour next door or up the road, could seek a declaration that something was an exempted development. If they did not do that, they could not put in a submission to An Bord Pleanála. Within that restriction, the High Court has commented that this is very difficult to justify under the Aarhus Convention. The Government has gone even a step worse and said that a third party cannot look for a declaration on exempted development. There is no rationale or reason given. It will be the developer or the person with permission to develop it who can seek the declaration. The recommendations from the many various groups are that this should not be done, that it is wrong, that this should not be done with judicial review because it is wrong, and asking for the rationale and the basis for it to be shown, and nowhere is it to be seen.

The restriction on residents’ associations and the onerous and burdensome criteria are nothing short of shocking when we are utterly reliant on people to come forward because the enforcement by local authorities is appalling and abysmal. A huge amount of that is down to the lack of staff in local authorities. I was in Achill with the Irish committee less than three weeks ago and we checked with the new county manager. I still call them county managers. It appeals to me, rather than the term "príomhfheidhmeannach".

It captures better what a local authority is there for - to serve. It is there to serve the people of Galway and Mayo. It is not a business. The Chair was there at the time, but he cannot comment, when the manager confirmed the number of vacancies for planners in Mayo County Council. This is the same for Galway City Council.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, which is a very respected organisation, highlight that we must keep the ex parte system, with the court retaining the discretion to direct that such an application can be heard on notice where circumstances require. The court has that discretion, and the Minister of State knows that better than I do. It can direct it to be on notice. I therefore have no idea why the Government is doing this. The commission also makes very serious submissions about the failure to deal with Traveller accommodation, which was briefly mentioned by Deputy Ó Broin. Nowhere is that reflected. The commission talked about the administrative scheme and its difficulties with that. It also talked about the getting rid of the Court of Appeal for this area of law only. Can you imagine getting rid of the Court of Appeal just for this area of law, when there is no rationale anywhere, no explanation as to why that is necessary, and no idea what it is based on? As I mentioned already, the former Chief Justice, Frank Clarke, had serious concerns that it will lead to a lot more litigation. It has already had unintended consequences in another area of law, namely, asylum. We have the experience of messing up there and we still have not learned.

I want to finish by thanking those who went to the trouble of putting in all those detailed submissions. I read every single one of the submissions. I did not read the more than 700 pages because I did not have the time. What I have read, however, has raised serious concerns for me that what we are doing is business as usual when actually what we need is transformative action on every level. I am the first to promote renewable energy, but the transformative action we need has to be with the people on board. What we are doing here is othering them by saying they are the problem and that they have created the mess, and not the Government that brought in strategic housing developments, SHDs. Most of them that were judicially reviewed were successful. At the time, the local authority in Galway warned the Government not to do this. It said it was taking up its time and that it was going to An Bord Pleanála. It was an absolute mess, and then the Government blamed An Bord Pleanála for that.

I do not blame An Bord Pleanála or the staff on the local authorities. I blame successive Governments. I abhor the narrative that is going out to the effect that people and serial objectors are to blame for a housing crisis and the failure to promote and develop serious and important infrastructural projects.

I am glad the Government has brought forward a Bill to make our planning system clearer in the aftermath of repeated calls from the Opposition at the committee on housing and by interest groups. I echo my fellow Deputies' concerns over the lack of: a proper explanatory memorandum for the Bill; adequate speaking time on the third-largest Bill in the State's history; and time for Members to read through the 700 pages plus of the Bill before it came into the House. I have not had the opportunity to sit down and go through the Bill.

The issue I want to raise, which was the subject of a Private Members' motion I tabled earlier in the year, is community gain for areas in which large-scale developments are being built. In my constituency, the City Edge Project will bring in 40,000-plus new residents over the next 50 years. On the South Circular Road, we will see hundreds of new units built over the next decade. In Drimnagh, with a population of over 12,500 people, the next decade will see the development of at least eight large brownfield sites. This will lead to 10,000 new housing units being built and more than double the population occupying the same physical space. I welcome these developments but I note that we must have more three and four-bedroom properties. We are only getting studios and one and two-bedroom properties.

I represent a constituency with a deep housing need. In many ways, it is at the forefront of the housing crisis. There is a need to ensure that the communities and areas affected by large-scale development are compensated for the changes in their areas and assured there will be no impact on the availability of services. I welcome the recent news that Drimnagh will receive funds for the new Crumlin and Drimnagh library at the old Ardscoil Éanna site, at a cost of €10 million, and for new changing rooms in Brickfield Park, at a cost of €2.5 million. The community has spent years fighting for both of these developments and I congratulate everybody involved in making this happen. Out of the €12.5 million involved in these two projects, all but €500,000 will come from development levies. These are two welcome new developments but they are not enough for an area in which the population is going to double over the next decade.

Dynamic Drimnagh produced a development plan for the area in 2021. It estimates that from the eight brownfield sites I mentioned earlier, there will be €63.576 million in development levies raised and a further €30.21 million brought in from another six sites. That is nearly €100 million in levies across 14 sites alone. These are massive numbers. For communities facing huge changes and big increases in population, the money involved needs to be invested in community gain. We need guarantees that the levies raised in local areas will be used to give those areas greater local services, resources and amenities. People need to see clear public planning for the provision of school places, primary healthcare and other public services in areas experiencing massive growth.

This is a Bill written for developers. The submission on this Bill by Community Law and Mediation and Environmental Justice Network Ireland to the committee on housing states:

The Bill attempts to fulfil promises made in the Program for Government and appease construction and property industry lobby groups who have long complained that excessively bureaucratic processes, over-regulation, restrictive nature protections and “NIMBYs” or “objectors” stymie development in Ireland.

What has really stymied development and planning in Ireland is not the burden on the construction sector but the burden being put on communities facing huge changes in population with no commensurate changes in public services or community resources. This Bill is a chance to get it right. Let communities keep the money or a red-circle piece of it, for example, 30% or 40%. Let them keep it in their areas to generate levies and institute development plans so that local communities gain services and resources, rather than losing out.

The submission from Community Law and Mediation and Environmental Justice Network Ireland also states:

... the narrative accepted by everyone from pundits, politicians to pedagogues, that “objectors” and judicial review are preventing the country from advancing on a variety of targets, from solving the housing crisis to tackling climate change, has been repeated so often that it has become axiomatic. It also has the appeal of “common sense” and as everyone knows someone who has fallen foul of the planning system in Ireland, chimes with people’s anecdotal experience. An examination of available figures quickly shows that the evidence does not support this contention and thus a core rationale underlying the Bill (i.e. too much judicial review) does not bear up to scrutiny.

The number of judicial review actions has remained relatively steady since 2012, ranging between 500 and 600. This is a tiny percentage of the around 40,000 planning applications made in 2021 and a fraction of the annual 6,000 to 8,000 applications denied for invalidity. Of the SHD judicial reviews taken, around 75% are successful, meaning the majority are in no way frivolous or unjustified. This contextualises the further restrictions being placed on residents' associations by the Bill. They require a formal constitution and a two thirds majority to take any decision. The scrapping of no foal, no fee, and for what? This will not bear a dramatic increase in planning approvals. A tiny percentage of applications are the subject of judicial review. Of that tiny percentage, the vast majority are successful. There is no point to these changes bar to restrict residents' associations from taking justified judicial reviews. The numbers are clear; it will have no real effect on approvals and it would not have a dramatic impact on housing builds. It will simply restrict people's ability to take action on inappropriate or improper development, as they see it, in their areas. If this Bill was not passed, they would, in the vast majority of cases, be successful in doing so.

I want to make the following point about another area of planning and I ask the Minister of State to comment on it. I am involved in the regeneration of Dolphin House. I received a letter from Dolphin House Community Development Association in recent days saying that Dolphin House is a community that lives in 70-year-old apartment blocks that are rapidly deteriorating, with intolerable living conditions for many families. Dolphin House was promised regeneration between 15 and 20 years ago and that regeneration is completely stuck now. Phase 1 was completed and a senior citizen complex was completed after years of effort but nothing has happened for nearly four years. That is the case even though a master plan was agreed that would provide 600 units of accommodation, even though they are shovel-ready sites that are ready to build on. The association said it had met Ministers frequently and that again and again they had been told that the money is there to complete the regeneration. It has not happened, however, and it will not happen for many years to come, while the living conditions of the majority of this community continue to get worse.

Dolphin House Community Development Association has said that it has been supplied with a chart demonstrating the process that must be undertaken before it can even apply for planning permission. This involves 25 different steps and there will be a further 16 steps before the project can move from planning to the beginning of construction. With the best will in the world, no new homes will be built on this site before 2031. The association went on to say that it has established that there are significant structural and management changes within the city council, which effectively mean that all work has ground to a halt. They say they understand that some preliminary work has been done on some of the processes but that they have yet to meet any team that might have been formed. They say they had no sight of an environmental impact assessment and that if work has begun on a strategic assessment report, the regeneration board has not been given any tangible information or sense of progress. The association goes on to say that this is not just unacceptable but that it is crazy.

There is one primary reason for this: the planning and decision-making process. Due to the size of the outstanding project, apparently it must be conducted under Part 10 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, with the cumbersome set of steps that I mentioned involved. The association goes on to say that it is asking the Government to agree with it and to insist to Dublin City Council that the available sites within Dolphin House, which could accommodate up to 200 high-quality homes, should be developed immediately under Part 8 of the planning process. That would speed the process up immeasurably, without breaching any requirements on property, propriety or planning. I ask the Minister to take that on board. There we have a site that is shovel-ready and ready to go and it looks like it will take another ten years before anything else can be built on that site, and we have been waiting since 2015.

This Bill needs much work and a lot more debate. I hope the Government gives us the time and ability to properly debate and amend it before it passes. That should include a public consultation on the Bill.

We have this tome of 720 pages to reform our planning Acts and we must ask why. It seems many of us do not really know why. We know there were problems with the planning system and that reviews were carried out, but we do not really know what those reviews found as they have never been published.

There was certainly a problem with An Bord Pleanála. There were many cases in An Bord Pleanála that were taking a long time, but we do not know why those cases were taking so long. It is not unreasonable to surmise they were taking so long because they raised complex issues and the board lacked the resources to deal with those issues. However, the Irish response to a lack of resources tends to be to bring in a law. It takes a lot of time and a certain amount of money to bring in a law, but it takes much less time and money than it does to address the root cause of the problem.

I find myself in agreement with much of what Deputy Connolly said. She spoke of the similarities between planning and access to An Bord Pleanála and immigration judicial reviews. Various Ministers for Justice have said the problem with immigration in Ireland is that we just cannot deal with the challenges so we should tinker around with the rules and bring in a new law and that will change matters. When it did not change matters, we changed the law back again to what it was and, unsurprisingly, the problem is still the same.

Alan Shatter was Minister for Justice. The Minister of State, Deputy O’Donnell, will remember Mr. Shatter as they served in the same parliamentary party. He had strengths and weaknesses, as everybody does, but one of his strengths was he did not go with the usual canard of saying he would change the law. Instead, he resourced the decision-makers. He resourced the citizenship section of the Department of Justice so instead of spending all its time and resources in the courts justifying the bad decisions it was making or, even more problematically, justifying the fact it was making no decisions at all, the section was resourced to make decisions and did so, and the problem did not arise anymore. This was much to the chagrin of some immigration lawyers - and I must declare I am someone who has practised in immigration judicial review – but at least proper decisions were being made. The same was true of first-instance decisions being judicially reviewed and it became more difficult to review first-instance decisions. Instead of changing the law in that regard, the former Minister hired a lot of people to make first-instance decisions and he ensured they were trained to make the decisions. Guess what? The judicial reviews fell away because bad decisions were no longer being made.

The problem with An Bord Pleanála is that it is making a lot of bad decisions. How do we know this? It is because the board is not able to stand over the decisions it is making in the courts when they are challenged. I am not blaming individuals in An Bord Pleanála, but the political system that has failed to resource An Bord Pleanála. If the board had been making decisions properly, it would not have been losing as many cases as it was. Maybe then, there would not be as many cases being taken because it would be perceived as difficult to win against the board on the basis that its decision-making was okay and it was able to stand over it. However, that is not where the board is at, so the response has been to change the law to make matters more difficult, rather than resourcing An Bord Pleanála. Unless the Government resources the board and its decision-making improves, we will still have the same problem. We will end up with a damaged environment because bad decisions will be made but it will be more difficult to challenge those decisions. It is incredible the Minister of State’s partners in Government have gone along with this because it will result in bad decisions being made which will be more difficult to challenge.

We are all aware of the phenomenon of pseudo-objections in An Bord Pleanála. That works both ways. It is not just that there are people who make objections in the hope they will be bought off. There are people who make legitimate objections and developers offer them a bit of money and ask them to take the few bob and go away. One feeds the other, unfortunately, and the fault is not all on one side. I am intrigued by RTÉ’s exposé, but maybe I am just here too long and have a suspicious mind, and maybe that suspicious mind comes from being a nefarious person, but when a programme from an independent broadcaster is timed to coincide with a Bill it is a happy coincidence at best. I hope it is just a happy coincidence because I would like reassurance from RTÉ about this programme, which bolsters the case the Minister of State and Minister are making. RTÉ is in a hole at the moment and desperately needs money, so I just hope it is not doing the Government a favour and the timing is entirely coincidental. That is all I wanted to say on that. I do not in any way condone what was exposed. It is wrong, it may well be criminal and I hope it is investigated. I call upon any and all authorities to investigate it and if it is not a criminal activity, the making of objections for the sake of obtaining a financial benefit should be an offence in this Bill. I hope the Minister does that.

Before I examine some of the provisions of the Bill, I will return to the lack of capacity in An Bord Pleanála. The lack of capacity with respect to environmental decisions is even more profound. Where a development is large-scale and will impact, or has the potential to impact, on a designated or European site, of which there are many in the State, an EIA or a Natura 2000 assessment must be done. The developer will pay a consultancy firm to do the assessment and will submit it along with the planning application. I have seen a number of these done over the years, but I have never seen one from a consultancy firm which states that, under no circumstances, should the development proceed because it will damage the environment. That is not how the world works. When a consultant is hired, be that by the Oireachtas, a Government Department or a private developer, it is hired to come up with a particular outcome. A consultant who does not come up with an outcome the client wants is very unlikely to be hired by the same client again and less likely to be hired by any other client.

These developments are, by and large, for profit. Most of the developments that are applied for are for profit and consultancy firms must come up with a decision that somehow justifies or softens the edges of the impact the development will have. Very few An Bord Pleanála inspectors have the expertise to go through those assessments and must take them at face value. They note what they say about the proposed measures and decide that they will do. They are not in a position to second-guess the material or to interrogate it.

If we are serious about the environment, and if the Green Party is serious about the environment, these assessments, the environmental impact reports, EIRs, the Natura 2000 reports, etc., need to be referred to an independent State agency that has the expertise to look at a report and, where necessary, declare it a load of codswallop. Agents should be able to say they appreciate the reports are done by consultants but still consider them a load of codswallop. They should also be able to say that they are right, that mitigation measures can be taken and that the project in question can proceed without damaging the environment. At the moment, we do not have that arrangement. We have an inspector who may be an engineer or who may have expertise in architecture but who is looking at detailed reports with no skills or training to interrogate them. Such inspectors are in a position whereby they must take the reports at face value. There is, in fact, a particular impetus to take them at face value when it comes to the strategic development of infrastructure, such as housing developments, because the Government has said it will go directly to An Bord Pleanála. There is no filtering mechanism whereby it goes first to the environmental department of a council, which may have among its staff an ecologist or environmental scientist who can at least interrogate the reports. That option is not even in place.

Strategic infrastructural developments going straight to An Bord Pleanála has been an unmitigated disaster. I see it is replicated in this Bill. Applications can still be made directly to the board. Why are we replicating failure? It has not worked. I appreciate what it was intended to achieve but it has not achieved it. Why are we doing this?

I note the section 5 declaration process is being done away with. We want to lessen litigation, it seems, and yet we remove that section 5 process. It is inexplicable that we are removing the section 5 declaration process, or, rather, limiting it to the owner of the property or the potential developer. A person who has concerns about whether something is exempt from development - often the most complex question in that regard is around whether screening is required - will only have the avenue that leads to the courts. We want people to go to court less but we take away the alternatives. It does not add up. Again, no explanation has been given and no outcomes of the review that was carried out on the operation of section 5 have been shared to explain what was so wrong with how it was working that it had to be removed. The removal of the section 5 process will force more people into court.

There are a couple of other problematic features of the Bill. It is not all bad. I welcome the fact that there are timelines for An Bord Pleanála. I raised an objection to this Bill proceeding on the basis that the explanatory memorandum is hopelessly inadequate. In a 720-page Bill, one might expect more information. The parliamentary draftsmen in the Department know exactly which provisions, and which parts of provisions, are restatements of existing law and which provisions are new law. Why not share that information with us? Why is it a secret? What does the Government gain by keeping it secret? It should share that information and tell us which sections and subsections are exact restatements of the previous law and which are new pieces of legislation. That might encourage people to interrogate such bits of the legislation more closely. I listened with interest to what Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan, from Cork, had to say. He talked about conspiracy theorists. When the Government is trying to hide what is new among a lot of what is old, and is not differentiating between the two, a little suspicion is not unreasonable and is quite understandable. I ask the Minister of State or the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, or whoever cares about this legislation, to come up with a memorandum that sets out in clear terms what is a restatement of existing law, what modifications are being made and what new law is in this 720-page tome. That would facilitate the law-making process.

A whole Part of the Bill attaches to the Dublin Airport Authority, DAA. I noted that applications should be made to a competent authority but the Bill does not state which competent authority. I assume the competent authority is the same one as in the 2000 Act that is being repealed, but that is not clear.

One of the more contentious areas is around appeals to the superior courts, which are judicial reviews generally, and the necessity to cut them down. Many of them are successful, as I said earlier, and if they are successful, it points to problems in the decision-making process or else suggests that we, the Legislature, are saying we do not like the courts. That is a big statement to be making if that is what we are doing. I do not think the Government will state overtly that it does not like the fact that the courts are upholding so many of these judicial reviews. It is for the courts to determine if the proper procedure was followed and a decision was made properly. They are making certain findings in the majority of cases they decide. In fairness, other cases are withdrawn. However, in a large proportion of cases, the courts are finding decisions were not made properly. I have concerns about anything that impedes access to justice. The Government talks about the importance of access to justice and says it is great. It says it needs to deal with this, that and the other. On the other hand, when access to justice does not suit an agenda - I will talk about the agenda in a couple of minutes - the Government impedes access to justice. It is impeding who can take a case and who cannot. It is not perhaps as draconian as it might be but I have concerns.

Section 259(2) specifically states: "No appeal to the Supreme Court shall lie from the determination of the High Court in Part 9 judicial review proceedings save on the basis of an application for leave to appeal under Article 34.5.4° of the Constitution." I do know why that needs to be stated. One cannot appeal directly from the High Court to the Supreme Court other than in accordance with that provision. It seems superfluous. Perhaps something is meant by it and if it is, I would like to know what it is. Perhaps it is just an inelegant piece of drafting. Is something specific meant by that subsection other than that which it states? It need not, in my view, be stated.

I will move to consider costs. It is regarded, perhaps somewhat unfairly, that there is an inequality of arms, or at least an inequality, at the moment, in that applicants will frequently not be liable for costs because they are a residents association or a loose association of people who cannot be pursued for costs. Even if they were not a loose association and were a legal entity or individual persons, they could not be pursued for costs if the application relates to an environmental-type planning case, under the Aarhus Convention and the relatively recent finding of the Supreme Court in the Heather Hill judgment. That said, there is a danger that the pendulum is going to swing too far the other way because costs are only going to be allowed in accordance with section 266. Those costs will be determined by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Commutations "after consulting with the Minister and the Minister for Justice", and "with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform". The latter Minister may have a vested interest in limiting judicial reviews because they might be slowing things down. The man or woman who will be writing the cheques - it has been men until now who have held the office - will have a vested interest in keeping the money down. He or she may want to deter judicial reviews to the greatest extent possible and even to make it financially unviable for people, other than those with very deep pockets, to access judicial reviews. Such a Minister may want to ensure that counsel and legal teams, even when they take on the gargantuan task of challenging a huge infrastructural development, and even when they win, get very low cost awards.

If the Government is serious about this being a real measure, at the very least the Law Society of Ireland and the Bar Council should be included in the consultation. Its representatives will at least know what level of costs is reasonable in the circumstances and what level is not. I do not know if the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach knows the film, "My Cousin Vinny". I do not have a cousin named Vinny, but I have seen the film.

Yes, Vinny won the case but that was Hollywood. There are many Vinnys who do not win. The Innocence Project in America works with lots of people who claim they were badly represented. Indeed, there are people in jails in Ireland who would claim they were badly represented. What we want to make sure is that people are not deterred on the basis of fees and that fees are not intentionally driven down so as to make it almost impossible to mount a challenge on an environmental basis. That would be incredibly cynical and detrimental. As bad as the Green Party is - or as good as it is because it is quite effectual, I will give it that - it will not always be in government. I have learned from my limited time in here that governments change. There could well be a Government that is a lot more hostile to the environment and environmental challenges and a Minister who is determined to build a motorway to every provincial town in Ireland. Imagine how people would feel about it if they were involved in campaigns or legal challenges to those and they could not get lawyers to represent them because the fees were so bad. Even through the downturn we always made sure that there was an equality of arms with regard to criminal justice.

There was an argument in the past about fees for criminal defence lawyers. The Bar Council approached the then Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Brendan Howlin, to say that there was an inequality of arms in that prosecution lawyers were getting a little bit more than defence lawyers. The Minister remedied that by cutting the higher fees but at least there was an equality of arms whereas here, for the first time, that principle is being challenged and that is a huge concern.

I want to thank the officials for the briefing they gave us on the Bill via Zoom a week or two ago.

Planning in this country is in a total mess. We can bring in all of the legislation we want but at the end of the day it depends on what planning authority one is dealing with because there is no consistency in the planning system. It also depends on who is the director of planning and who is over the ordinary planners. Some people could have a vendetta such that they do not want to see rural housing being built. It is absolutely crazy. In the west of Ireland there are people who are on the borders of several counties but every local authority is different. All people want to know when they are applying for planning permission is whether there are pitfalls. They want to go into a pre-planning meeting with planners who will outline and explain the pitfalls of the project being proposed and how to resolve the issues to make the project compatible with everything that is required. Some planning authorities have a system such that they do not want houses in rural areas and there is one of them in the west of Ireland. Some do not want to see businesses coming into their county and one person can dictate the whole pace in that county. I know of a county where six or eight houses were built years ago during the bang. There is sewerage, water, footpaths and everything else but now the development does not comply with the county development plan. How in the name of God does one square that circle? The county development plan has moved on. We need houses. We have to have a bit of cop on and not have a vendetta about planning. There are some authorities that have a commonsense, helpful approach and will work with applicants. That is all anyone is asking for and then they are either entitled to permission or they are not. It is one or the other.

In relation to An Bord Pleanála, it is chaos as far as I can see. I know of young couples who are trying to build a house and someone puts in an objection to An Bord Pleanála. We write a letter on their behalf and we get a response to the effect that the board will look at it when it gets to it. That is all we get. These are young couples trying to build a house. What I want to know is whether, from the Department down, a message has gone to An Bord Pleanála because if one looks at the statistics, it is clear that almost every one-off rural house is being banged if it goes into An Bord Pleanála. Is there a vendetta within the Department to get rid of one-off housing? If that is the case, we need to change a lot. We are in a housing crisis at the moment. Applicants in rural areas provide their own site. They are not looking for lights or sewerage. Thanks be to God, electricity has been brought to the whole of Ireland so they are not looking for new electricity. Thankfully, we also have roads in all parts of the country so they are not looking for new roads either. They will give a contribution towards the amenities in their local area although they do not get the benefit. There are no footpaths, they have to build their own walls around their house and do everything else needed. They also give 3 m in case the road is ever widened but there is a mentality that we should try to get rid of this. It might not be climate friendly but we must admit to one thing. The furthest house down the road will always be the furthest house and if one is building before it, does it really matter? We need to make sure that we are proactive in that.

I would worry about the planning guidelines that will come out of this Bill, particularly for the likes of one-off housing. The dogs in the street know what has been going on over the last ten or 12 years. The recent "Prime Time" programme was no shock to people. What is going on in this country is absolutely disgusting. There are people objecting in the name of the environment and different things. There are politicians objecting but thankfully, I am not one of them. I never objected to anything in my life in the line of housing because I believe that people need houses. We have a shortage of houses and we need to start limiting who can object to housing projects. Why would someone in Cork object to a project in Galway? What business is it of theirs what is built in Galway?

The main thing that opened the door to all of the objections and problems in planning is the habitats directive. This all started with that directive because it introduced environmental impact assessments, EIAs, which enables screening out. No matter what one is doing in this country, whether it is building a road, developing a port, doing some work in a field, building a house, or extending an airport, one has to go through screening, EIAs and so on. If the Government wants to build houses, it should look at what the Minister for the environment, Deputy Ryan, did when he wanted to put in jet engines in different places. There was a part of the habitats directive that the Government was able to sideline and that is what was done. There is no point in dressing it up differently. All of that was sidelined because there was an emergency in the sense that we could run out of electricity. If housing is an emergency in this country, the Government will have to do the same because no matter what happens, we are going to have serial objectors going into the courts and holding things up. This is the game that goes on. An application goes into the council and they will make an observation. Then, if the council grants permission, it goes to An Bord Pleanála. It is flapping around there for a year or more, maybe two years. If it is for a one-off house, God only knows when a reply will come back. Then people turn around and run into the courts. The courts, and we have to say this straight out, say that the applicant has to pay Johnny and Mary because they are objecting. The builders seem to have all of the money in the world. One would swear they had a cheque book the whole time.

That does not work. Sometimes, there are serious grounds, and there is the Aarhus Convention and so on, but in general, many of the objections are spurious. The habitats directive is being used, which no one can see. Forestry is another one. You can go through all the different categories, including bogs, which is what closed Bord na Móna. Every single thing you look at in the context of problems and what is not allowed in planning includes the habitats directive, which has to be adhered to. It was signed into law in 1997, when the current President, Michael D. Higgins, was the Minister responsible. He told everyone there would never be a bother. This is the problem with bad legislation that is not scrutinised and comes into force. We see now that it is down the road that it bites you on the ass. It came in, there was a bedding-in period and the environmentalists got a hold of it. To be quite frank about it, the latter are nearly stalling the country.

Lough Funshinagh, which is a turlough, is designated as a special area of conservation. Roscommon County Council wanted to use emergency powers but the habitats directive was used to trump it. The council was in the courts, but it was trumped by the European law. It had to do its screening out, appropriate assessment and all that. By the time everything is done, and by the time you go for planning, and to An Bord Pleanála and the courts, you will have lost thousands of the likes of those turloughs, and you will have lost people, a community and land. Is that a good system or good legislation? Will anyone do anything about it? I wanted to re-examine this one time. I was asked to do my part by the Turf Cutters and Contractors Association, TCCA. I would have been as well off if I had gone home to count cattle. I gave my tuppence worth and then went on to something else. That was it. That was the look at it. Nothing changed. The Department of the environment was doing it and the National Parks and Wildlife Service was involved. I am not blaming them for the simple reason there was a full overview of it in a heap of countries. All I did was waste a full day looking into a screen at the time of the Covid pandemic. I was wasting my time.

I will say one thing to the Minister of State - the Government needs to come clean on this. I fully support houses being built. I fully support fast-track houses being done because we cannot talk about not having houses on one hand and then block everything on the other. That does not add up. Either we are going to do it or we are not. I fully believe that the Government is trying its best to get houses, but we are tangled up in knots at the moment. This is no insult to the civil servants, but the more paperwork they do, the more we seem to get caught up in knots because there is always something to bite us. The first thing I will ask regarding the legislation is whether we will get through the habitats directive. There is a 15 km zone, but now screening out and EIAs have to be done. In most places in County Galway, Lough Corrib is right beside you. We see the Galway outer bypass. Deputy Grealish said yesterday that the project relating to the latter has been 26 years on the go. We are still no further with it. Can we realistically produce legislation which states that this, this and this are gone, and it is foolproof or bulletproof when someone brings it to court? That is the big question.

The first step as regards any planning Bill is that we should have gone back to Europe to renegotiate parts of that habitats directive. A similar measure is coming, namely, the nature restoration law. I spoke to the Government about that. It stated that it is mindful of it. The nature restoration law is more legislation that will add more paperwork to the whole thing. At the moment, county development plans, local area plans and all that craic are being done. Do we want to make sure that we have the legislation right? I am fearful. I would love to see the legislation go through on one condition. First, that civil servants living in Dublin recognise that people in rural Ireland have to live and work there and are entitled to have houses. If you come from a farm, you cannot live ten miles away and wonder did the cow calf. You have to be able to live on your farm.

There is another problem in that Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, is objecting to everything it can. Sorry, but where I was born is not my fault, if it decides to put in a road later on that brings people to Dublin, Cork, Limerick or wherever. People's fathers or mothers might be there and some of the houses they are in might be in poor repair. There was always an unwritten rule that people could come out through what we would call a shared driveway but TII now seem to be objecting to the lot. The minute TII object, it is goodbye to getting planning. The council will run a mile. The way TII is going on, it is nearly like it is going after the councils. They will not stand up to anybody in TII. There seems to be someone within constantly watching and, no matter where it is, the objection will go in. That is not the way to look after people. It has to be done sensibly. Are there sightlines? Are people coming out the same driveway that people did for the past 100 years? If they are, there should not be an objection.

I spoke to the Minister of State about this previously. I ask him to put something in legislation to help those people. It does not affect hundreds of thousands of houses, but it is about the viability of farms and small communities. We do not want to see people being pushed into areas, when it comes to being able to do their work. It is very solvable. TII will use its old trick and will go on about safety. How did daddy and mammy come out their driveway for the past 50 years and did not get the nose cut off them from driving out on the road? Now, however, for Johnny the young fella or Mary the young girl, it is all under health and safety. If a bit is added onto the back of the house or there is a granny flat, they are still going to come out. This is the stupidity of what is going on.

I would like the Minister of State to comment on what we call national framework planning. There is a section in the Bill on the national planning framework. Will any part of that affect one-off housing? Will it affect the ordinary person living in a rural area? I support getting houses built in the cities and large towns. I support that because we cannot keep talking about houses. For the past four or five years, I have heard nothing but talk of houses. Every Wednesday night, we have a motion about housing. There is something about renting or housing every week. However, we will never solve the problem until we put bricks, mortar and concrete together and build. We can talk about it all we want. Yes, we are getting some built, but the number of houses that are held up through objections and the planning process at present is ferocious. It would take an awful lot of pressure off throughout the country if they were built.

I do not need to use all my time. The one thing I will say to civil servants in Dublin is that they might be used to coming in on a DART, Luas or whatever, but they have to think that people have to live in different areas. It is not my fault where I was born; do not look down on me. I ask them to acknowledge that we keep a little piece of Ireland going, and that we pay taxes that might keep a small shop, a local national school or a local football team going. It is the word "community" which keeps that going. They should not try to decimate that by this theory in the head that everyone should be clustered together. Just think how much it costs. Irish Water is not able to cater for the number of treatment plants it currently has. It does not have enough money. It will take a good few years. I not giving out about Irish Water, but not every treatment plant in Ireland will be done in the next five or ten years. It will not be done. When the big bust of rain comes, bang, you have to release sewage. That is it. You can be as nice and as environmental as you want, but that is the reality.

You have got to let it go. So, the big bust of sewage will go into a river. That will happen, and it will go into the sea. That will happen. We think this will never happen. It is like not wanting to talk about something that is happening in reality. We are afraid to say that it happens. That is the reality. If we do not do that it will come up everyone's toilet. It is as simple as that. It will back up everywhere and come up through the manholes and the roads. It has to be done. They will not have enough capacity in all these towns that are building up because the more houses we build the more infrastructure we need. The more houses we build the more roads will be needed into them along with infrastructure of sewerage systems. That takes time. One does not put that together overnight. One needs schools and all the different things that go into making an area.

I will say another thing about one-off housing. Just think of one thing. At the moment the Department, the Department of Education, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and all the different Departments have their heads wrecked that if more houses are built they will have to put in a school and this and that to facilitate development, and the next thing parents will be in uproar saying they need this and they need a school tomorrow and prefabs are no good. I ask the Minister of State to think of just one thing: they are built already in the rural areas. They are there. The infrastructure for what we need is there and we can cater for more so do not try to hammer us on the rural planning guidelines. That is the one thing I am concerned about. I do support the Minister of State in trying to get a planning Bill through providing it does not affect us in the rural areas. I do support getting more housing done and getting it done quicker, and to bypass some of the stuff that has been going on. The people who are objecting to everything cannot be listened to. It has to be driven on.

Will the Minister of State comment on the habitats directive? No matter which Department people are dealing with in this country at the moment they are caught as if in chains with what they have to go through.

I thank all Deputies for their engagement. I believe we have had roughly seven hours of debate. I thank the officials in the Department and the planning officials here who have done an extraordinary body of work. That has to go on the record.

Deputy Fitzmaurice is still in the House. I shall approach my response through the Bill itself. It is important to say that while the Deputy may have a frustration there are rural houses being built. That needs to be said.

We want people to live in rural Ireland. We want the schools to be populated. We want rural towns and rural villages to do well.

Under European Union law we must comply with the habitats directive. We are currently doing an update on the national planning framework. We are meeting with the planning advisory forum, which I chair. We have a body of work commissioned with the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, looking at population trends based on the census. The ESRI will provide us with an update on that early in the new year. This will feed into looking at population trends in Ireland. An element of that will feed into planning for rural Ireland. It has to be systematic as well. The Deputy has posed an issue that has come up a lot in terms of national routes and so forth. I am committed to people living in rural Ireland. I come from a rural background, I was reared in a town, and I represent a city constituency now so I am familiar with all aspects. For me, I see this Bill as an integrated model. It is important that at some point in time one has a review of this. I see this as a consolidated Bill for planning. An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, Deputy Verona Murphy, the other Deputies and I are all practising politicians. The three elements to this are: the lack of consistency on planning decisions, the certainty around timelines and clarity of particular aspects. With this model we are looking to have a plan-led model and we want to ensure the last measure should be the judicial review.

The Deputy spoke about resources. We are putting resources into the local authorities. The County and City Management Association did a report with more than 500 planners and staff in that area. The resources are going in and we are looking to recruit 100 this year. Furthermore, we are recruiting to bring the complement up to 300 in An Bord Pleanála. We believe An Bord Pleanála statutory timelines will also bring certainty and that is what developers want.

A couple of issues also came up with people about the allotments and that is now in the legislation. It is in section 46(3) on page 106 of the Bill. That had come up quite a bit. It is not being brought forward as amendment: it is actually in the legislation now with the same provisions as the current Planning and Development Act 2000. The Bill before us is a once in-a-generation opportunity to update, improve and future-proof legislation that underpins so much of our day-to-day lives and which plays a role in almost every aim and aspiration that we put forward in these Houses. Whether it is planning for new school buildings, funding new sports or healthcare facilities, delivering new homes, or building the transport and energy infrastructure to enable continued growth, the planning system plays a pivotal role. This Bill is not just about building houses. It is about building a vital infrastructure, schools and everything else as well.

Planning is a complex interdependent system. We want the development plans to link in with the RSES plans that link in with the national planning framework. We are looking for a balance to ensure we streamline the planning process but under Aarhus principles the public will continue to be able to put in submissions or object, whatever term one wants to use. We are required to do that under the Aarhus principles and under recent legislation. It is complex. Decision makers must balance environmental concerns with delivery objectives where the voice of local people and elected representatives must be considered. Within An Bord Pleanála we now have a specific section dealing with marine and we have people under that. Previous contributors spoke about being able to deal with the environment impact statements, EIS. That skill set is within An Bord Pleanála regardless of any individual perspective on housing delivery or the climate transition. Climate came up quite a number of times. Climate is specifically dealt with in the Bill in sections 27, 41 and 24 so it is not fair to say the Bill does not deal with climate change. It deals with it quite significantly.

We can all agree on the need for a planning system that is transparent as well as efficient, clear and consistent where, regardless of the final outcome, the processes at least are considered fair and inclusive. The Bill before the House is a combination of rigorous legal review of the Bill by Attorneys General - the previous Attorney General and the current Attorney General - and engagement across a range of Government Departments, supplemented by the experience and input of more than 30 key organisations across the Irish planning sector, public and private, through involvement of the planning advisory forum, which I continue to chair. There has been extensive engagement with the Oireachtas joint committee. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, and I are very much looking forward to engaging with the committee and we are very open to Committee Stage amendments. We may not agree with all of them but we are very much open to engaging with them. I am with the Deputy on that. There was also a comprehensive prelegislative process which was positive and welcome.

To that end, much of the work that has gone into this Bill has gone into bringing increased clarity to the process, adding certainty for all stakeholders and ensuring public and private practitioners have full confidence in the planning system. There is also the introduction of statutory timelines across all consenting processes, particularly in An Bord Pleanála, and unprecedented investment in and resources for An Bord Pleanála. Every tier of the planning system, from the national planning framework to, especially, plans for local areas, will be renewed and refined to ensure increased alignment throughout.

An issue that came up concerned councillors' involvement under this new planning Bill. Development plans go from six to ten years. There is a review process after five years. Variations can come forward at that stage but councillors can request variations at any point in the cycle of the plan. Nothing has changed in that regard. In terms of ministerial statements, we will look for one of the stakeholders to consult his councillors.

The introduction of statutory timelines across all consenting processes is a step-change in the planning process. Section 28 guidelines will be replaced by national planning statements, approved by the Government following consultation with relevant stakeholders.

The process and parameters of judicial review came up with a number of Members. These have been clarified and refined to exploit the process while improving access to justice through the introduction of an environmental legal cost financial assistance mechanism, which will be available to contribute to the cost of such cases, and the introduction of a scale of fees to regulate the overall cost of the areas.

An issue that came up today concerned putting in a request that something be deemed an exempted development. We have taken the view that people directly involved can request an exempted development. People who are not are third parties. There is nothing to stop them in a normal way going to the local authority and putting in a complaint or request on an issue. We are putting the resources into the local authorities for that.

Another issue that came up was “use it or lose it”. We are very much streamlining. That has not changed. People will still be able to apply for an extension but it will be for one extension with a maximum of five years. Furthermore, if they are applying for that extension, they must have commenced the development. There will never be a situation where a person gets the extension without the development and building works under way. We will table an amendment to that effect on Committee Stage.

We want a robust system. We want a unified approach. Everybody is looking for consistency. There is a lack of consistency at the moment. I get it from all public representatives. The national planning statements will have the approval of the Government and will be accompanied by guidelines which will be more flexible to allow local authorities to implement them in a flexible way.

On judicial review reforms, effectively we are looking to streamline the process. Apply to leave is being removed. People will still be able to take judicial reviews, as they can now. Further, we are putting in an environmental legal costs supports scheme. That will ensure people can take cases to judicial review under the Aarhus principles, which ensures nothing will stop people taking a case if they have a genuine case. We want to ensure they are not frivolous or vexatious because we want to streamline the process.

I will deal with an issue that many brought up. Whatever people say about RTÉ, it does good investigative journalism. The work “RTÉ Investigates” did this week on the planning issue shone a light on something that should not be happening. It is something that must be said about RTÉ. In my role as Minister of State with responsibility for planning, it is not appropriate to comment on individual cases. Anyone with concerns regarding a breach of law in respect of a planning application should contact An Garda Síochána. The planning system is an open process which encourages public participation. The Government does not condone behaviour which would interfere with the process as set out in legislation or which would lead to possible abuse of the courts system.

My colleague, the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, wrote to the Attorney General and the Minister for Justice on this matter this July to express his desire to find a suitable solution to the challenge of demands for financial compensation regarding planning objections. The Attorney General provided the view that such matters are provided for under current criminal justice legislation. However, in order to protect the planning process, we are reviewing this matter in the context of the current Planning and Development Bill before the House and in terms of sanctions in that area. An Bord Pleanála has powers to dismiss an appeal where it is of the opinion that it is frivolous or vexatious or has been made with the intention of delaying the development or securing money, gifts or other inducements. These provisions are replicated in the Bill.

The legislation is accompanied by specific timelines, particularly in terms of An Bord Pleanála, and additional resources for An Bord Pleanála and local authorities to ensure we get applications through efficiently. People can make submissions but the applications will be dealt with in a timely fashion. With An Bord Pleanála, it is between 18 and 48 weeks, depending on the type of application.

The Bill is a product of a rigorous and ambitious overhaul of legislation that has served for almost a quarter of a century and has been extensively added to and amended in that time. The Bill updates and refines the building blocks of the planning system to ensure that it is fit to meet any new challenges the coming decades may present and that Ireland can plan confidently and consistently to meet future challenges in a fair, transparent and inclusive manner.

We have listened to the views of the Attorney General, the joint Oireachtas committee, the pre-legislative scrutiny report and the valued input of members of the planning advisory forum and beyond. I thank Deputies for their engagement on the Bill in recent days. We look forward to engaging with them on Committee Stage.

I have touched on a number of the items that were raised. I have touched on An Bord Pleanála, which was brought up by a large number of Members. I have touched on the environmental legal costs supports scheme, the input of councillors and the habitats directive. People asked why we are bringing this in. We are bringing it in because at any point in time you have to look at legislation in the round. Looking across all areas, we had a consolidated tax Bill and a consolidated competition Bill; it is appropriate we have a consolidated planning Bill as well. I have dealt with judicial reviews, exempted developments and the fact the Bill deals comprehensively with climate change. The transition arrangements will come through on Committee Stage. That was raised by quite a number of Members. Some of what Members brought up was very important. It will get rigorous review on Committee Stage. I dealt with rural Ireland. Deputy Moynihan referred to social cohesion included in planning, which is hugely important.

We do not want situations arising in the planning system that slow it down with frivolous and vexatious claims.

We need to build houses and to get infrastructure on stream, and we want to do that in a fair and balanced way. It is fair to say that the large majority of planning applications are coming through the local authorities, which do fantastic work, and that has to be said.

In conclusion, I thank all Members for their contributions. We look forward to detailed engagement on Committee Stage and I look forward to the amendments they are bringing forward in order that out of it, we have a consolidated planning Bill that is fit for a modern age in respect of what we are looking to do in Ireland for the next long number of years.