Planning and Development (Amendment) (Large-scale Residential Development) Bill 2021: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2021-11-16
============================================================

Fintan Warfield (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel

Let me explain the motivation behind the amendments. The mandatory planning guidelines, controversial as they were, were introduced by a previous Minister, Eoghan Murphy. They have given us co-living, build-to-rent and further height controversy. That is the motivation behind amendment No. 5. With regard to the motivation behind amendment No. 6, we talked about build-to-rent standards. Eoghan Murphy's guidelines mean less dual-aspect apartments, less storage, more studio apartments, fewer lifts and stairwells, yet higher rents. What does that say to renters? It says that if you are a renter, you deserve less than what you would get if you owned or built your own home.
Unfortunately, build-to-rent apartments are all we see being developed in our urban centres with renters paying extortionate rents to live in lower standard accommodation. Essentially, these policies that were started by the then Minister, Deputy Kelly, have significantly shifted investment away from affordable residential homes, which is what we need. That is the motivation behind tabling those two amendments. What is currently in place is undemocratic and, therefore, I would like to press the amendment.

---

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/2021-11-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-11-16