Planning and Development Bill
Ivana Bacik criticised the planned guillotining of the Planning and Development Bill and argued it concentrates too much power in the Minister. The Minister replied that the Bill had already received extensive debate and was needed to deliver homes.
Tomorrow the Government will guillotine through the Planning and Development Bill even though it is one of the most important Bills this Dáil will consider because planning will determine our capacity to resolve the housing crisis, the energy crisis and, indeed, transport infrastructure. Ironically, under our planning laws, if a council or local authority made a decision the way the Dáil will make its decisions on the Planning and Development Bill, the decision would be quashed. We have real concerns about the Bill concentrating power in the hands of the Minister. We know Seanad amendments will now introduce a class of strategic infrastructure to be exempt from normal protocols. These strategic infrastructure projects include liquified natural gas, LNG - a deeply harmful fossil fuel. As Sinéad Mercier and Amy Strecker pointed out in The Irish Times yesterday, LNG infrastructure can hardly be considered strategic in a climate crisis. Although we have such a short time for debate tomorrow, will the Government at least enable all the LNG amendments to be debated so that we will have the opportunity to consider them in this House?
Comment on this
We must appreciate that this Bill has had over 170 hours of debate, which is more than I have seen for any Bill during my time in this House. Deputies and Senators have had the opportunity to raise all of these matters on various Stages. The most important thing I hear from constituents, developers and those working in this sector is they need many of these amendments and this legislation to be able to build more homes for people to be able to move into. Be it building social, private or affordable homes or addressing the long delays in our planning system, this Bill will assist in dealing with many of the challenges people face. The time that has been given is the time that has been given. A total of 170 hours have already been spent on the Bill. We need to move on and enact it and get more houses built.