Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2025-07-15
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Joe Flaherty (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach

Regarding the tone of some of the amendments from the other side, there is very much an argument that developers are at fault. The tone is very much use it or lose it. Senator Boyhan mentioned the midlands. As a rural TD, I find that one of the biggest laggards in the housing crisis are the local authorities here in Dublin. I have followed one case, as I know the Minister of State has as an avid reader of the Business Post . It is a scheme of 103 apartments on the Old Naas Road, which were completed in 2019. They are still empty, albeit fully furnished, and the developer was prepared and ready to release them onto the rental market. They have been held up repeatedly, primarily by the enforcement team in Dublin City Council, which seems to have a free rein over how that council operates to the detriment of everybody, but most importantly to the detriment of the people Senator Boyhan spoke so eloquently about, the people in the teeth of a housing crisis at the moment.
In the middle of last year, it was recommended that the issue would go to mediation and the eminent former Chief Justice Frank Clarke presided over that mediation. It came to a point where he suggested a lawyers-only meeting to try to reach a compromise and ultimate agreement in this case. Dublin City Council took that as its opportunity to exit the mediation process and unfortunately it still goes on. The message I am trying to deliver is that until people working in local authorities and particularly people in positions of influence, such as enforcement and planning, come to realise that there is indeed a housing crisis and that it affects them and their families, we will never resolve it.
I appreciate what the Minister of State and the senior Minister are doing. We need to engage every lever in an effort to try to sort this housing crisis. This Bill is very much part of that process. The staff and officials of local authorities are key players in this and they are not engaging with the sincerity and conviction they need to engage with if we are serious about dealing with this issue.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-07-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:03+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-07-15