Let me respond. In the first instance, I clearly articulated the resource base that a local authority would have. Heretofore under the SHD process, the resource base was shared 50-50 with the board but the local authority will now retain 100% of an application fee, which is significant. This will provide resourcing to ensure that the local authority has a robust planning department. In tandem with that, a working group has been established with the County and City Management Association, CCMA - its first meeting is…

I thank Deputy Dillon for his question. I know he is a great advocate in this area as I have been to Mayo and have seen at first hand the work Mayo County Council has carried out and the lobbying Deputy Dillon has been doing. I am happy to confirm that a circular has been issued in the past 24 hours to increase by 20% the funding that has been attached to the vacant homes office. We also now have a plan to transition all vacant homes officer posts into full-time positions. Heretofore, as Members will be aware, only…

Mayo has done huge work in highlighting vacanthomes.ie to identify vacancy and areas in which properties can be brought back into use. It is very important that local authorities have full-time vacant homes officers in place to take advantage of these key funding streams now being put forward by the Government with record levels of funding to try to bring these properties back into use. In addition, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, is working on the first-time buyer's grant to bring derelict properties back into use. …

To Deputy Dillon I will say that we will launch our Town Centre First initiative very shortly, in the coming weeks. That will be an enabling strategy to tie together a lot of the funding streams to which he referred in order to unlock the potential of our rural towns and villages right across the country. That will be a significant intervention by the Government. Deputy Stanton is fully correct. There has been a huge problem in respect of full-time vacant homes officers. We are now increasing the funding significan…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 71 and 120 together. At its meeting of 20 April 2021, the Government approved the general scheme of a Bill providing for a directly elected mayor for Limerick. The Government also approved the publication of the general scheme, as well as its referral both to the Oireachtas for pre-legislative scrutiny and to the Office of the Attorney General for priority drafting of a Bill. The general scheme is in line with the 2019 Government policy proposals for a directly elected Mayor with ex…

I concur with the sentiments of the former Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, that it is the most progressive and the biggest reform of local government since the foundation of the State. In the first instance, looking at the timeline, on 24 May 2019 the plebiscite was held. Subsequently, we established the implementation advisory group in January 2021. Following that, there was a general election and programme for Government negotiations took place. Mr. Tim O'Connor and his advisory group had to go through their pr…

I thank the Deputies. I have seen a first draft of the legislation. We are trying to build in the report on pre-legislative scrutiny from the Oireachtas joint committee and the bilateral engagement I have had with other Departments. This is significant. I encourage Deputies to encourage Ministers in various Departments to give a significant amount of power to the mayor. A big challenge is getting power from Dublin devolved to Limerick. We can see the benefits this can bring in other jurisdictions. I would appreciat…

The guidelines for planning authorities and sustainable rural housing 2005 were issued under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and require planning authorities to frame the planning policies in their development plans in a balanced and measured way. Since 2018 the national planning framework. NPF, is the national policy document providing the overall strategy for the future development of Ireland. National policy objective, NPO, 19 aims to ensure that policy distinction is made between areas exper…

I concur with the Deputy. It is important that, as a society, we acknowledge and understand the demand for rural housing. That is critical to providing a policy to allow for it in a sustainable way. It is important that we have good planning practices and that we call out the misinformation that is currently circulating on WhatsApp groups and in society that one-off rural housing is going to be banned. That is entirely not going to be the case.

I thank Senators for their contributions. This amendment seeks to ensure that elected members of a local authority are eligible for appointment as members of the board or a committee of the board of MARA. It is the Government's intention that MARA will become a centre of excellence for maritime usages. I am committed to ensuring the success of the new agency. On Committee Stage in the Dáil, we moved a number of amendments to address concerns raised on Second Stage. These amendments rebalanced the proposed compositi…

I thank the Members for their contributions. This amendment is entirely unacceptable to the Government. It seeks to establish the maritime area consent, MAC, as an environmental assessment tool. That is not what a MAC is. The State owns or controls almost the entire maritime area from the high water mark to the outer limit of the continental shelf. Anyone who wants to carry out a development or activity in the maritime area must, therefore, obtain the consent of the State to be able to occupy a part of the maritime…

I thank the Senators for their contributions. The amendment implies that MAC provisions do not comply with the Aarhus Convention in that they provide for no public participation when MARA grants a MAC. I will point out that the Aarhus Convention or, more accurately, the second pillar of the Aarhus Convention, which provides for public participation, has no application to consent whereby a state is granting occupancy rights in respect of property it owns or controls. There is, therefore, no international law or obli…

I cannot accept amendment No. 1, which proposes that the setting of a rent under a tenancy of a dwelling may not occur in a period of three years from the commencement of section 3 of the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2021. Besides the difficulties with a blanket ban on rent increases, which I will address presently, the amendment as drafted would have significant unintended consequences. As provided for in this amendment, the setting of rent under the tenancy of a dwelling in a rent pressure zone at any ti…

I thank the Deputies. Unfortunately, I cannot accept amendment No. 8 as it is unnecessary. Section 19(5), referred to in the proposed amendment, provides for limited exemptions from the rent pressure zone rent control, including where a substantial change in nature of the accommodation provided under the tenancy occurs. Section 76 of the Residential Tenancies Act provides, inter alia , that either or both parties to an existing or terminated tenancy of a dwelling may individually or jointly, as appropriate, refer t…

I thank the Deputies for their comments. I cannot accept amendment No. 10, which proposes to impose various reporting requirements on the Minister. My officials, the Residential Tenancies Board and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, keep the Residential Tenancies Acts under constant review to ensure the provisions, including the grounds for termination and associated notification and procedural requirements, are fit for purpose in a modern rental market. The Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019 made substa…

I thank the Deputies for their contributions. Unfortunately, at this moment in time I am unable to accept amendments Nos. 11 and 12, which propose to impose restrictions on the operation of section 19B of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004. Section 19B was introduced into the principal Act by the Residential Tenancies (No. 2) Act 2021 in July of this year, as outlined by the contributors. It provides that the total amount anyone can be obliged to pay upfront to a landlord by way of deposit or an advance rent paymen…

These amendments propose to deem the entire State a rent pressure zone, which has been debated numerous times and which I cannot accept. Having regard to the constitutionally protected property rights of landlords, including the right to receive an income from their properties, a blanket extension of the rent pressure zone rent predictability measure to rental properties across the entire country could be regarded as an unjust interference with those rights because it places a legislative limit on rental income wit…

I thank those who have contributed to the debate, and Senator O'Loughlin and her colleagues for proposing the debate, which is very important in terms of where we are in the process. I want to reflect on where we were on July 2020 when I took office as Minister of State with responsibility for local government and planning. We had the local elections in 2014 where around 21% of candidates elected were women. In 2019 that increased marginally to 24%, which was still significantly out of kilter with the European aver…

It worked well for the Senator.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am grateful to the Chair and to all Deputies for facilitating debate on this urgent rental legislation in Dáil Éireann. I also wish to record my thanks to the Chief Whip and to the members of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage for enabling the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2021 to be read a Second Time here, following its passing in the Seanad last week. I am asking the House to pass the Bill to enable its early enactme…