It is a pity that the Minister spent most of his time making attacks. People do not want to hear attacks back and forth; they want us to discuss solutions. I have a couple of facts for the Minister. First, 82% of planning permissions in Dublin city in 2020 were for build to rent schemes, which are exclusively bought by investment funds so there is no individual purchase in that. More than €100 million was spent last year by investment funds in buying up houses. Last year, not a single affordable purchase home was d…

The Minister is due to receive that report six weeks after it was initiated, which is tomorrow. Is it on course to be delivered to him tomorrow? How long will it take for him to review it and to inform us what actions he will take on foot of the report? What will the Government do to ensure that all the allegations in the public domain will be properly investigated?

We have been asking at the Business Committee for several weeks for statements on An Bord Pleanála. New allegations have been coming out week after week in respect of undeclared conflicts of interest and irregularities regarding the appointment of board members. There have also been also allegations that board members made changes to independent inspectors' reports and overruled the vast majority of cases with regard to specific types of applications. There are also allegations that files were not randomly allocate…

On 15 February, the retired journalist, Frank McDonald, wrote to the Chair of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, regarding a disturbing pattern which he had noticed when reviewing the minutes of the meetings of An Bord Pleanála. He noticed that "Decisions on SHD schemes, particularly those of a high-rise nature, were made by panels of three that consistently included two particular board members rather than being allocated randomly among board members, contrary to assurances given to the…

It is extremely disappointing that the amendments have been brought in on Report Stage that were not part of the Bill or the process before. They were not sought during pre-legislative scrutiny by any of the organisations or groups consulted. There were a lot of different requests, very legitimate ones, to improve and strengthen the Bill. Many have not been accepted, unfortunately. I put down amendments that would have strengthened our democracy yet somehow, at the very end of the process, these amendments were tab…

I want to make a couple of points. On the lack of time, I vehemently opposed the use of the guillotine and the restriction of the debate to 90 minutes. We did so on multiple occasions, from meetings of the Business Committee to the Order of Business. Shoehorning more than 100 amendments into 90 minutes is not a way to deal with this. It is bad process and it is bad for democracy. I do not support it at all. It means we are not getting sufficient time to go through these amendments at all. I have made that point bef…

On 15 February, Frank McDonald, a retired journalist from The Irish Times , wrote to the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage regarding a very disturbing pattern which he noticed when reviewing the minutes of An Bord Pleanála’s meetings. He noticed that: “Decisions on [strategic housing development] schemes, particularly those of a high-rise nature, were made by panels of three that consistently included two particular board members rather than being allocated randomly among boa…

I want to ask about the commitment in the programme for Government regarding the divestment of schools. The programme for Government commits to ensuring plurality in regard to choice in education and progress on this has been extremely slow. Survey after survey shows the majority of parents want to send their children to secular, co-educational schools but the places are not there to meet the demand. In my constituency, a survey of parents in one area showed just 5% of the respondents wanted single-sex, religious s…

I want to ask about the Government's plans to give €450 million in subsidies to developers. These subsidies will be used to build apartments that, according to an analysis by the Business Post , will only be affordable for people on the top 15% of incomes. In the Dáil and the national media, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has repeatedly stated that the subsidies will be going directly to homeowners and not to developers. This is simply not true. Documents published …

First, I welcome this Bill. It is important legislation. Establishing an electoral commission is long overdue. It is an important measure, and the main thrust of the Bill is one I welcome. As I outlined on Second Stage, I have a slightly different take on this from that of other parties. While I welcome the legislation as very good, it is weak in some places and must be strengthened, especially in areas around voter education. I have tabled amendments on that which we will discuss shortly on Committee Stage. I hope…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I thank the Minister, Deputy McEntee, for attending this debate. I may not use the full 15 minutes afforded to me. I have heard people say that before and not necessarily stick to it, but I will do my best. I thank the people who contributed to the huge amount of work that went into drawing up this Bill. Paul Cassidy did the initial draft and Pádraig Rice did quite a lot of work on it. In addition, we had very comprehensive support from the Office of Parliamentary …

Will I get the right to respond, if necessary?

Perfect.

I thank the Minister for the comprehensive response. Indeed, it is not the one I wanted to hear but I appreciate that significant work and analysis went into it. In terms of the way we brought forward this Bill and the intention behind it, we would have been happy to work through with the Government and compromise on the issues that she raised. We are aware of the different issues she raised and discussed them in detail with the Office of the Parliamentary Legal Advisor, OPLA, in preparing this Bill. It would be po…

I refer to the Government's plans to give €450 million in State subsidies to private developers to build apartments. The scheme is designed to cater for people in the highest income brackets - the top 15%, according to analysis by the Business Post . Will the Minister tell us whether the provision of €450 million in State subsidies for developers complies with European Union state aid rules? Has the Government applied to the European Commission for an exemption to the state aid rules in respect of the scheme? Why h…

Will the Minister answer my question about EU state aid rules?

You will not answer the question.

The Minister has not answered the question about EU state aid rules.

I welcome this Bill. The Social Democrats will support it. I thank an Teachta Ó Broin for tabling it. The general thrust and approach is to place responsibility on the platforms that advertise short-term lets. They clearly have a key responsibility to ensure that in order to advertise, or accept an advertisement, they should have proof that it is planning-compliant. That should have been done several years ago when these regulations were first brought in. We can have a good discussion on Committee Stage about wheth…

We know that two separate investigations are now under way into allegations of conflict of interest in decision-making of the deputy chair of An Bord Pleanála, Paul Hyde. One of the investigations is being carried out by Remy Farrell, senior counsel, while the other is an internal audit. The terms of reference for Mr. Farrell's inquiry were published by the Government exactly one week ago but they already appear to be out of date as further allegations have come to light. The Ditch has reported that an inspector's …