Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-14 ============================================================ Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel This is the first reference to the Planning Regulator so it is an opportune time to mention a few issues of concern in this area. I acknowledged during the last session when we were dealing with this Bill the important and significant work of the Planning Regulator. I acknowledge the Office of the Planning Regulator, rather than the individual, and its support for sitting county councillors. It runs many workshops of engagement, which is critical. I have said time and again that councillors are not engineers, planners or architects - most of them anyway, although there might be the odd one. They are usually committed to the proper planning and sustainable development of their functional areas and beyond. Therefore, they need a lot of assistance. When we signed off on the 2024 Act, we were told it was the be-all and end-all, but now we are doing another patch-up of that legislation through this legislation to give effect to a number of areas that were approved. I see the reasoning behind some of that. The Minister of State will not have prepared a response to this because he did not know I would bring it up. My ask is that he take it back to his officials. The Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR, was established in April 2019. Last year we were told there was to be a periodic critical review of the office. That is not unusual. It happens in many agencies. The OPR's main statutory functions, in summary, are evaluation of statutory plans and responsibility for the independent assessment of all local authority forward planning and regional assembly forward planning, which we will be talking about in this Bill; the hierarchy of the planning system, including development plans, local area plans and regional spatial and economic strategies, all of which is covered in this legislation; and planning reviews and examinations, which involve reviewing the organisation, systems and procedures used by the planning authorities, including An Coimisiún Pleanála, in the performance of their planning functions under this Act and subsequent legislation. There is also the role of the OPR in education and research. I acknowledge the proactive, significant and positive work it does in this area. It is responsible for conducting national education and training programmes for members and staff of planning authorities and regional assemblies. We can have the best legislation in place but we need to have the planners, architects and all the background people. We need to have them trained and upskilled. We know we have problems in An Coimisiún Pleanála and I will talk about them later. We had a shortage of staff, training and resources and a whole range of issues. It looks as if An Coimisiún Pleanála, in fairness, is back up on four cylinders and is delivering on its timeframes. We were promised that the periodic critical review would be completed. My understanding from contacts in political circles and the Customs House is that this work is done and is sitting on someone's desk. It could be argued that the Minister has other things going on, and work planning and delivery have to be prioritised, but parliamentary business in the Chambers of the Houses is winding down this week. Since the establishment of the OPR a number of key policy objectives have been progressed by the Government and I acknowledge that. They all have significant impact on and interaction with our statutory planning processes. Therefore, it is important that we deal with the issues. We must remember that planning is critically important for the delivery of housing, our climate action objectives and plans, Government policies such as the national housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030, and accelerating essential infrastructure. I will finish on this point. It is important that there is role for the Office of the Planning Regulator. I support that role but it is important in the programme for Government and the Government's housing plan, as the Minister of State has said, that the review of the role and functions of the Office of the Planning Regulator takes place. Action 16 seeks to review the role of the functions of the Office of the Planning Regulator and drive performance in the planning system, including consistency with decision-making. We have heard this consistency right through this legislation. The Office of the Planning Regulator ensures that local authorities and An Coimisiún Pleanála are consistent with their implementation of central government policy through the planning system. Therefore, the Government has committed to review the role and the functions of the Office of the Planning Regulator. This is very much an important view. It is recognised that it was essential. As I say, there was nothing wrong with it. This was to be published. I know it has been completed and the question really is that there is a critical role for the Office of the Planning Regulator. It is embedded in the 2024 legislation. It is mentioned in this legislation in this relevant section 18 that we are now talking about. If we are going to join up all the dots, planning is a very fragmented science. I presume that all of these consolidated Bills and legislation is to bring all the dots together, to have everything working in unison and delivering what it sets out to do; proper planning and sustainable development in terms of new homes, new industry, new enterprise, new commerce and a better environmental country and world for us all to live in. I would appreciate if the Minister of State takes this back to the Minister. I did not indicate that I was going to speak about this. I ask that it be prioritised or we be briefed about it. Once the report is considered I ask that the appropriate people would publish it. It is in the interests of the Office of the Planning Regulator and of all the parties aligned, interacting and crossing the varied space of proper planning and sustainable development. --- 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/2026-07-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:15+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-14