An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-09
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Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel

I welcome the Government’s announcement that the draft national planning statement on design standards for apartments will now open to the public again. This is a new draft set of guidelines. I cautioned this many times. Members of the House should be aware that the current guidelines were the subject of a High Court action, which is not appropriate for me to go into other than to say they were referred by Mr. Justice Humphreys and are now before the European courts. Many developers and planners have raised concerns about this. Indeed, I have raised concerns and submitted a Commencement matter for later this week.
I wrote to An Coimisiún Pleanála on 5 June and received correspondence today. It said that An Coimisiún Pleanála has been applying the 2025 design standard guidance for apartments for planning authorities to the planning appeals since July 2025. We have somewhat of a confused state in relation to these guidelines. We know that a number of councillors from other parties and none initiated these legal proceedings. We know they were heard in the High Court and the decision under Mr. Justice Humphreys was to refer them to the European courts. We are applying guidelines that are in legal limbo. Anyway, the State has clearly recognised there is a concern in this regard. There is an issue with the strategic environmental assessment, SEA, directive.
It today announced a new public consultation, which I welcome because it gives a sense of certainty. Parallel to the disputed guidelines that have been in operation, we will have other guidelines. The submissions and observations regarding the draft national planning statement, which will now be a planning statement, and an SEA environmental report have been published for consultation. The Government is happy to announce today that the consultation process starts and will be completed at 5.30 p.m. on 7 July 2026. I thank the Leader and the Government for bringing a bit of common sense to the matter. We will not be able to discuss it tomorrow because it does not come within the broader context of planning, but it will come up later in the week. It is a good decision. I want to be practical and to acknowledge that late in the day, the Government has taken the pragmatic decision, regardless of the outcome in the courts, to proceed in the interests of certainty so we can have a planning statement that will cover this issue.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-09