Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-09 ============================================================ Joe Flaherty (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach The Minister of State is very welcome to the House. He, Senator Boyhan and I have lived a long time with this Bill. We spent the bulk of the term of the previous Government working on it down in the committee rooms. I have empathy with his officials, some of whom were with us on that journey and are back with us again. This is very important legislation. At its core is a genuine and heartfelt effort to resolve some of the barriers affecting delivery of housing in this country. The main purpose of the Bill is to support the smooth commencement later this year of the remaining provisions of the 2024 Act. It will speed up the implementation of the new procedural rules for planning judicial review that were introduced in the 2024 legislation. The Bill will apply the measures to any remaining Acts or decisions made under that legislation. The changes in the Bill will fast-track the reforms necessary to speed up the planning process and will help us to deliver more homes in a timely manner. The Bill seeks to provide clarity and further policy direction on a number of matters relating to plan-making, including the timely introduction of a ten-year development plan for all local authorities. The Bill also seeks to address actions assigned to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage under the accelerating infrastructure task force report and action plan 2025 to enhance the timely delivery of critical infrastructural plans. Both the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Browne, have been clear that the changes in the Bill will fast-track the necessary reforms in our planning system to speed up the process and help to deliver more housing more quickly. I will focus on three aspects of the Bill. The first is the provision regarding judicial review. It is critical and long overdue that the Bill will speed up the implementation of the new procedural rules for planning judicial reviews introduced under the 2024 Act. The Bill will apply the measures to any remaining Acts or decisions made under that legislation. This includes beneficial measures such as the removal of the requirement to apply for leave to apply for judicial review proceedings. This will enable a case to be remitted back to the point at which a procedural breach may have occurred, as an alternative to the whole case having to be quashed, and will remove the possibility of further legal appeal to the Court of Appeal. All of this reduces the time taken and removes unnecessary additional legal costs for all parties. That must be welcomed. The introduction of these measures at an earlier date is intended to result in a reduction in unnecessary delays and to accelerate the delivery of critical decisions, ultimately speeding up housing delivery. We all must welcome that. A key plank of the legislation is the provision for the new ten-year development plans. The Bill seeks to provide clarity and further policy direction on a number of matters that have already commenced under Part 3 of the 2024 Act relating to plan-making, including the timely introduction of the long-awaited ten-year development plans. The Bill amends Part 3 to provide a deadline for the making of three regional, spatial and economic strategies, RSESs, under the 2024 Act and to allow planning authorities to amend the duration of their current development plans for a defined maximum period, where necessary. These amendments will speed up the move to plan-making under the 2024 Act and ensure the transitional measures already provided for will operate as originally intended in line with the hierarchy of plan-making. One of the biggest barriers to the delivery of housing is lack of infrastructure. Addressing that is now a critical action for the Government. We have a task force led by the Minister, Deputy Chambers. It is critical and welcome that this Bill will seek to address a number of actions that were assigned to the Department of housing following Government approval of the accelerating infrastructure task force report and action plan 2025 to enhance the timely delivery of critical infrastructure projects. This is a very important and much-needed development. I have engaged with this Bill for a number of years. I see the value in it and I see how important it is that we get it over the line. I commend the Minister of State on his work on it to date. --- 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/2026-07-09/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:11+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-09