The delay in the publication of the planning and development Bill will, we are told, be short-lived. But the likely timeline for passing the Bill into law has slipped into early 2024. If this is a few more weeks in order to get a complex piece of legislation correct, then that is fair enough. However, this is a vital piece of legislation and its implementation needs to be given priority.
The delay presumably relates to moves by the Government to respond to criticism of the draft of the Bill, including 153 proposed amendments from the Oireachtas housing committee and caution from planners and others about its likely impact. There has been much food for thought in all this.
There is a consensus that there are undue delays in the legal and planning process, creating uncertainty and pushing up costs. There is much debate about how this should be properly addressed. But addressed it must be if Ireland is to have any chance of speeding the provision of new housing and building vital new infrastructure related to energy and the climate transition.
A key ambition of the Bill is to have decisions debated and made at an earlier stage, with greater public participation in the planning and development stage, meaning a reduced number of objections and judicial reviews as individual projects are proposed. There will be much attention about how this is balanced with the right to object and the mechanisms to speed up judicial reviews.
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Plans cannot be rammed through without due consultation and process – as guaranteed under the Aarhus Convention and EU law – but nor can we persist with the seemingly endless delays and higher costs which are a feature of the current system. The public good needs to trump the Nimbyism all too common in Ireland over recent years.
Resourcing and streamlining the planning and courts system is also vital and we are promised that this is in hand. It will now take time to pass the Bill and even after it is enacted secondary legislation and other measures may be needed before it comes fully into force. It is time to get on with it.