I was not called to come in.

I must first be called before I can respond. It is ironic that Senator Cummins has been accused of not addressing the amendment when he pointed out a flaw in the presentation made by Senator Gavan yet Senator Gavan has not addressed the amendment and has gone totally away from it. To specifically address the amendment, I was clear that if litigation was successful, any damages above the level of the grant would go to the homeowner. I was also clear that the Minister intends to shortly appoint a senior counsel in re…

Amendments Nos. 61 to 64, inclusive, seek to call out explicitly in the Bill the role of the Public Appointments Service in recommending the appeal panel members for appointment, to specifically call out some of the experience and expertise required, such as human rights and equality training, for appointment to the appeals panel, to have the chairperson of the appeals panel recommended by the Public Appointments Service and to exclude local authority or departmental employees from the appeals panel. I confirm that…

Amendments Nos. 65 and 66 seek to allow new documentation to be submitted as part of the appeal process and, therefore, add to what may be considered by an appeals board from the documentation available to the original decision maker. It is important to understand that the appeals process is not a new application process. It is an appeal to an independent body that is made available to the applicant where he or she believes that an error may have occurred in the original decision-making process. It is important, th…

The first Government amendment relates to short-term letting provisions in the planning Act. The Government recognises that a significant number of properties have been withdrawn from the long-term rental market in recent years and been diverted for use as short-term lets. It also recognises the associated negative impact this has had on the supply and availability of private residential rental accommodation, with knock-on implications for rental prices. Further amendments will be brought forward to address this is…

That is what I have just spoken to.

The second set of amendments relates to ministerial directions on statutory plans as provided for in the planning Act. Since the April 2019 commencement and operation of the Office of the Planning Regulator on foot of implementation of the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2018, a number of technical matters have come to light regarding the legislative procedure relating to section 31 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, including, but not limited to: sections 31AM and 31AN, concerning development plans…

I thank Senators for their contributions. In the first instance, I flagged the substantive changes in this Bill in the Seanad last April and our intention to bring forward these amendments. Second, we had a number of briefings on 25 May for Senators, and this week we had a second briefing for over an hour and a half, but the full allocated time was not taken up.

Regarding those amendments, it is very interesting to hear Senators make a charge with regard to the Office of the Planning Regulator, an office that was established on foot of the Mahon tribunal on planning matters, conflicts of interest and lobbying. The amendments we are making are to ensure consistency and to put in better timelines to make it transparent for the public when a chief executive issues his or her report back to the Planning Regulator and for timelines for the Minister to act on recommendations mad…

The third set of amendments relate to planning flexibility applications in the Planning and Development Act 2000. These amendments address the decision of Humphreys J. in the case Peter Sweetman v . An Bord Pleanála, Ireland and the Attorney General, and Bord na Móna regarding the design envelope approach for the submission of certain planning applications which require a degree of flexibility at the planning application stage as the final details of such developments may be unconfirmed at that stage. The High Cour…

Section 10 is a procedural amendment relating to the flexibility opinion process for applications under section 34 of the principal Act. Large-scale residential development, LRD, applications come under section 34 of the Planning and Development Act, and a pre-application procedure is in place in respect of LRD applications. The section provides that a prospective LRD applicant seeking a meeting regarding flexibility may request that the existing LRD pre-application meeting also be held for that purpose. The aim of…

The fourth set of Government amendments relates to judicial review provisions in the planning Act. New amendments will require the court to consider whether there is an adequate appeal or other available administrative remedy and, if so, it should not grant leave. This is not as absolute as the amendment that was originally proposed but it is compliant with EU law and creates a presumption, which the court is required to implement, that issues arising from determinations of planning authorities ought to be appealed…

The first proposed change relates to the insertion of a new provision in section 50A of the Act to provide that the court shall not grant leave to apply for a judicial review challenge unless it is satisfied that the applicant has exhausted any available appeal procedure or any other administrative remedy available to him or her in respect of the decision or act concerned. This amendment effectively means that the courts will be required to consider whether there is an adequate or other administrative remedy availa…

I just took a look there - I referred to exactly what we are doing now. I was reading from my Second Stage contribution on judicial reviews of the administrative process word for word. There is a great deal of misinformation going around in Senators' responses today. The sixth set of Government amendments relates to technical amendments to the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021. These amendments were recommended and drafted by the Office of the Attorney General. Section 56 of the 2021 Act will be amended to allow for …

The Maritime Area Planning Bill was enacted on 23 December 2021 and established the legal framework for a new planning system for the maritime area. One of the main features of the Act is the creation of a new State consent, namely, the maritime area consent, as a first step in a new and streamlined planning process. The Minister approved and signed a commencement order on 10 March 2022 to commence certain required elements of the Act, namely, sections 72(4) and 72(6). Section 72(4) sets out the process for the app…

I move: That it be an instruction to the Committee on the Planning and Development (Amendment) (No.2) Bill 2022, that: ( a ) Standing Order 233(2) is modified to provide that the Committee has the power to make amendments to the Bill which are outside the existing subject matter of the Bill, in relation to: (i) the Valuation Acts 2001 to 2020 to enable the Commissioner of Valuation to defer the roll out of the national revaluation programme; and (ii) the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021, which amendments are technic…

It should be there. We can organise that immediately.

We can wait until we get it.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I apologise; my office is working on it and the speech will be here as quickly as possible. I will continue. The purpose of the amendments to the Valuation Acts, 2001 to 2020, is to enable the Commissioner of Valuation to defer the roll-out of the national revaluation programme due to the unprecedented impact on the economy and the commercial property market since the beginning of Covid-19. The proposed technical amendments to provisions in the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021 incl…

Amendment No. 25 is being withdrawn.