Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2025-07-15
============================================================

John Cummins (FG), Waterford

I will now address amendments Nos. 34 and 56, as tabled by Senators McCormack, Murphy, Andrews, Collins, Ryan and Tully, and amendments Nos. 35 to 40, inclusive, and 42, as tabled by Senators Higgins and Stephenson. These amendments relate to the extension-of-duration provisions of the Bill.
Amendment No. 34 seeks to provide that as part of an application for an extension of duration, the applicant shall submit a viability assessment and a detailed schedule of works.
Amendment No. 36 seeks to amend the extension-of-duration provision to provide that a contractor who is in receipt of State subsidies must publish an annual profit-and-loss account, an auditor’s report and a balance sheet in order to qualify for funding. Section 16 of the Bill does not relate to funding and therefore I cannot accept this amendment. It would not be appropriate to seek accounting information as part of a request to extend the duration of a planning permission.
Amendments Nos. 37 and 40 seek to provide that development must begin construction within a specified timeframe after receiving planning permission, and penalties for non-compliance will include the withdrawal of permission for the development. Amendment No. 39 seeks to provide that substantial works must commence in two years or otherwise the permission will expire. These amendments are unnecessary as the provision already provides that works must commence within 18 months of the coming into operation of the provision or otherwise the extension will cease to have effect. For these reasons, I cannot accept these amendments.
Amendment No. 38 seeks to provide that applications for extensions may not be sought on other developments if a person has sought an extension on a development already and not commenced it. I cannot accept this amendment as applications should be dealt with on an individual basis. There may be circumstances beyond a person’s control as to why a development did not commence.
Amendment No. 42 provides that extensions should be granted for a minimal period only. This is unnecessary as the provision already provides that the planning authority is limited to extending the appropriate period by such additional period as the planning authority considers requisite to enable the development concerned to be completed. For this reason, I cannot accept this amendment.
Amendment No. 56 seeks to provide by legislation that the Minister shall lay a report before the Oireachtas every six months on the operation of the extension of duration, detailing the number of developments that have availed of the extensions, the number of units granted extension that have commenced and the number of units that have been completed. Section 42(5) of the Act of 2000 already provides that the details of any extension of duration is entered on the planning register. As there are already provisions in place to deal with these matters, I cannot accept this amendment.
Further to Senator Boyhan's comments, it is important in responding to amendments that full clarifications are given on the record of this House for anybody who may read the record of this debate. That is the case for any Minister who comes before the House. I take very seriously the debate that happens in this House and in the Dáil. As someone who was a proud Member of this House for four and a half years, I have agreed with the Leader to extend the duration of the debate, which he will propose shortly.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

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