I move amendment No. 11: In page 12, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following: “(b) an explanation as to why the development has not yet commenced, a viability assessment setting out what has changed that would allow the development to commence if an extension of duration is granted, and a detailed schedule of works setting out when the various stages of development will occur,”.

I move amendment No. 14: "In page 13, line 25, to delete “18 months” and substitute “6 months”."

I move amendment No. 15: In page 13, between lines 30 and 31, to insert the following: “(h) The Minister may, by way of regulations, provide for third party observations to the planning authority on any request for an extension of duration under this section. The regulations may include provision for: (i) the publication of public notices, on site, in newspapers and on digital platforms, of any request for an extension of duration under this section; (ii) the publication, on the planning authority website, of all d…

I move amendment No. 16: In page 14, after line 18, to insert the following: “Report on planning permissions and residential units 18. Within three months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a report detailing the number of planning permissions and residential units to which section 14 of this Act may apply and making recommendations on how to ensure that extensions of duration of planning permissions are only granted where the development is likely to commence and…

There is no enforcement of commencements. I understand the Minister's officials in the Department are liaising with local authorities with respect to determining whether developments that are availing of the development levy waiver and the water utility connection waiver are having a look at this. Local authorities do planning enforcement, but many do not even have the staff to do building control enforcement. There is no system for enforcing this. While I understand the Minister is not accepting the amendments, th…

I move amendment No. 17: In page 14, after line 18, to insert the following: “Report on extensions 18. Every six months after the passing of this Act, the Minister shall lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a report on the operation of the extension of duration detailing the number of developments that have availed of the extensions, the number of units granted extension that have commenced and the number of units that have been completed.”.

I move amendment No. 18: In page 14, after line 18, to insert the following: "Report on impact of Judicial Reviews 18. Within three months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a report on the impact of Judicial Reviews on development including, critical infrastructure, renewable energy, public transport and residential development and setting out options for increasing the resources of the courts to deal with Judicial Reviews in a timely manner, and options for the …

I move amendment No. 19: In page 14, after line 18, to insert the following: "Report on compliance 18. Within three months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a report on the compliance of all sections of this Act with the State’s obligations under the Aarhus Convention and the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive.".

Be careful what you wish for.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I am sharing time with Deputy Gould. When Deputy Darragh O'Brien was the Minister for housing and he launched a once-in-a-generation review on consolidation of the planning and development Acts, one of his main arguments was that the 2000 Act had been amended so many times that the legislation was unwieldy, too difficult to understand and overly complex and, therefore, what we needed was a complete rewrite of the entire planning code, simplified and consolidated into a single Bill…

I read the Department's amendment this morning. There is nothing constructive about it. It is an absolute embarrassment because of what it says not just to Deputies in this Chamber but to the people experiencing the hard edge of the Government's failed housing policies, which is that nothing will change. It is more of the same failed policies into the future. Yesterday, the housing committee had a session on homelessness. Niall Muldoon, the Ombudsman for Children, spoke clearly about the catastrophic impact of home…

What an utter shambles. In my entire time in Dáil Éireann, I have never witnessed a more haphazard, ramshackle, back-of-the-envelope process for putting in place widespread reforms that are going to impact tens of thousands of people. While I understand Ministers and Ministers of State have to come here and defend this farce, privately they must be absolutely reeling. The credibility of the Government's housing policy has once again been exposed as an absolute sham. Only five months into the job, the Minister's own…

In the best-case scenario, all this will do is create a modest increase in the levels of institutional investment in high-end, high-cost, private rental cost developments in the Google quarter, Sandyford and other high-income areas. Everyone else will be left behind. The industry reaction to this has ranged from the lukewarm to the hostile because the Government could not even get that bit right. The consequence is that renters everywhere will pay a cost. They will not get the supply dividend the Minister is allegi…

I have heard the Minister and the Taoiseach say over and over again that they are going to protect all existing renters. Some 80% of current renters are in tenancies of six years or less. Long-term renters are in the minority. That is becoming increasingly evident through the constant levels of eviction notices. The idea that somehow existing renters are protected is simply not true. While there is no doubt the security of tenure changes will benefit a small number of renters, the Government is creating an even mor…

The Minister should go and talk to the journalists who raised these questions with his officials at the technical briefing. This was going to be in the legislation later this year. While the RPZs should have always applied to all renters back in 2016, no one should be facing rent increases right now. We need rent increases banned for an emergency period of three years for those renters paying the highest rents in the history of the State. The amendments I will table later, which we will push to a vote, would do exa…

I move amendment No. 1: In page 3, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following: “Amendment of section 19 of Principal Act 2. Section 19(4)(b) of the Principal Act is amended, in the definition of “relevant percentage”— (a) in paragraph (a), by the substitution of “0 per cent” for “2 per cent”, and (b) by the deletion of paragraph (b).”. One of the great things about the truth is that it always comes out. Over the coming months and into next year, the impact of the changes the Minister is making, not just here …

I move amendment No. 3: In page 3, line 25, to delete "28 February 2026" and substitute "23 June 2028". The amendments in this group are straightforward. They are connected to amendment No. 1, the purpose of which was to ensure that rent could not be set above zero, effectively giving rise to a ban on rent increases. This was to change the principal Act and the amending legislation in order that the ban would last for three years. As I articulated on Second Stage and while speaking on the first group of amendments …

One of the issues the Minister did not respond to at the closing of his Second Stage speech was raised by his Government colleague Deputy Carrigy and I. One of the consequences of extending the rent pressure zones to areas currently not designated is that, theoretically speaking, Eoghan Murphy's 2019 short-term letting regulations would apply. Obviously, the Government has decided to take a different course, which is Peter Burke's short-term letting register, and the Minister, Deputy Browne, and his officials will …

To be very clear, my view is that the Eoghan Murphy 2019 regulations should not be applied because, first, they are unenforceable and, second, the Government and the Opposition are currently working on a mechanism to do that. Therefore, I am inviting the Minister to say that they will not be applied.

That is factually not the case. In fact, in the original rent pressure zones of Dublin and Cork, and also in the successive waves of rent pressure zones, those short-term lets operating outside of planning law continue to operate outside of planning law. The reason for this - the Minister was not responsible for it - is that Eoghan Murphy did not put any effective enforcement mechanism into the 2019 regulations. Dublin city and Cork city attempted, very valiantly, to enforce the 2019 regulations but, unfortunately,…