Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-09 ============================================================ John Cummins (FG), Waterford I thank Senators for their engagement with the Bill. As I said in the Dáil Chamber, it is not lost on me that people have made the criticism that there is not sufficient time, yet the only people I am speaking to in this Chamber are members of the Government, and there is no Opposition present. It is a fair observation to say that at the outset. The provisions referred to in my opening contribution are there to help accelerate the implementation of the 2024 Act, which is of the utmost importance. Regarding the comments about not getting this Bill passed before the summer recess, the implication of that is that I will not be able to get the full implementation of the 2024 Act completed before the end of this year. It is in the interests of everyone who interacts with the planning system for the 2024 Act to be commenced and in operation by the end of the year. Most of this Bill is made up of transitionary provisions to ensure that takes place. It includes the provisions around the regional economic and spatial strategies and putting a hard deadline of 31 December 2027 in place in respect of those. It also makes provision for the ten-year county and city development plans, which, as most Senators have acknowledged, is a positive development. It will ensure their timely review comes into place between July of next year and July 2030 in order to ensure that they conclude their processes by between February and December 2030. We had many debates on the provisions around judicial review that were introduced in the 2024 Act. The Bill merely takes what has already been implemented in the 2024 Act and applies it to decisions made under the 2000 Act. This is to try to expedite judicial reviews. Regardless of who takes a judicial review, we can all agree that streamlining and expediting the process is sure to be a positive thing for the entire system. The Bill also includes measures around critical infrastructure in the context of the accelerating infrastructure action plan. As stated, about 50% of the Bill comprises technical amendments and corrections of typographical errors. I will now address some of the specific points made by Senators. A number of Senators welcomed the provision in respect of increasing the upper threshold for the Housing Finance Agency from €13.5 billion to €15 billion. I agree that this is a positive measure. It will ensure certainty through the middle of next year regarding the continued funding of social, affordable and student rental accommodation. The ten-year development plans are all about ensuring that we have stability and that what is proposed will be implemented on a longer horizon, as Senator Lynch rightly pointed out. This is a positive for the entire system, and I concur with the sentiments of Senators in relation to local democracy and powers for local councillors. This is why I appointed the local democracy task force, which reported in November. I will be bringing an implementation plan in terms of the review that has been carried out to Cabinet very shortly. I believe in local democracy, as I know all Senators do. Regarding engagement, I assure Senators that there has been extensive dialogue with local authorities, An Coimisiún Pleanála and all stakeholders in the system in order to ensure that we have a timely and practical implementation of the Act. There have been extensive working groups that my officials have been working with. I note the timing of things. There is a huge body of work on which many of my officials, the same people, have been working. We have regulations on exempted developments that are before the Oireachtas, others that were been before it in December and more that will be dealt with next week and in the autumn. There is a huge body of work involved, and everybody is working exceptionally hard. There has been major dialogue with the Office of the Attorney General and the drafters about the Bill. That takes a considerable time. It was not possible to bring the Bill before the Houses prior to the past couple of weeks. I would appreciate the co-operation of everyone to ensure its timely passage through the House. I will address a couple of other points that were raised. We will talk about the question of viability of apartments more on Committee Stage. Viability is intrinsically linked to deliverability. Therefore, it is intrinsically linked to homelessness and the provision of accommodation. The Government and I are in the business of ensuring that we have, in this Bill, a time-bound measure of two years to ensure that we can alter existing planning permissions for residential developments and alter the internal envelope in that regard to ensure that it will be more viable for the sector to deliver them. The alternative is that we tie up local authority staff - the very staff that people have just said need more resources - in dealing with more planning applications that date right back to the start of the planning process. What I am trying to introduce here is a time-bound, common-sense measure that will allow for improved viability. If that has an impact of bringing any developments on stream, then it will be a positive measure. Senator McCormack stated that this will not increase supply. If supply is delivered, I hope the record of the House will be corrected. Regarding Senator Blaney's reference to rural planning, as he will appreciate, it is not connected to this Bill. We did publish the national planning statement. That has to go through strategic environmental assessment. There are references to national secondary roads as part of it. Everything the Minister and I are trying to do is about streamlining the planning process to ensure exactly what Senator Lynch said, namely that we have consistency and clarity across the board, whether that is for large-scale residential development or one-off rural housing. The measures in the Bill will have a positive impact regarding the implementation of the third-largest piece of legislation in the history of the State. I commend the Bill to the House. --- 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