Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-08
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Conor Sheehan (LAB), Limerick City

There was a couple of things I wanted to say on this. I, too, am opposed to sections 61 and 62, for many of the reasons that were outlined by my colleague. When I think about stimulating supply, the type of supply that these new apartment guidelines will stimulate, if any, will be expensive, high-yield, build-to-rent apartments in Dublin and only very specific parts of Cork. It certainly will not build anything in Limerick, the city I represent. We saw last year the debacle when the Minister, Deputy James Browne, tried to use section 28 and the Government failed to undertake an environmental impact assessment, and then had to basically pull the guidelines. It is now coming back with this national planning statement on the revised apartment guidelines, which will result in smaller, darker apartments without dual aspect, studio apartments that are just 32 sq. m. Einstein's definition of madness is doing the same thing and expecting different results. We have a method that has been tried and tested and has failed. We know that, with soaring construction inflation, the mooted cost savings the Minister gave at the time have been all but wiped out in the last year. By going down this road, the Minister of State is creating a system of making apartment living unviable for people as a permanent living solution, as someplace where they can build a home. We will end up with very small, dark, expensive apartments that will be very hot in the summer. That is a point that is not often made. These apartments will mainly be occupied either more permanently by people who are social housing tenants or, if they are occupied by renters, those renters will not be protected by any sort of meaningful protection in respect of the cost of their rent. They will be paying upwards of €3,000 in cities like Dublin. They will barely be able to afford it, or they are not going to want to live there long term. It is going to contribute further towards hollowing out the urban core of places like Dublin, driving people out of inner city communities.
Many previous Ministers have gone down this road, including, truth be told, one of my own party colleagues, going back as far as 2015. It has not worked. Every time we have reduced apartment standards, we have had the same heavy, developer-led lobby coming along every two or three years and claiming the viability measures introduced around design guidelines or size do not work and that we need to go smaller and cheaper. The entire model we are using is not working. The State is in many cases paying way over the top for apartments. With these revised guidelines, we are not going to get the high-quality, decent, permanent, sustainable homes that people actually want to live in. I think that gets completely lost in this discussion. We will go and do this, and that will be fine, and it may stimulate some expensive build-to-rent residential development, but unless there is a fundamental change in approach, either the Minister of State or somebody else will be back here in two to three years' time looking to go further and smaller again.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-08/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-08